The San Francisco Earthquake, Tinted

The devastation of the great San Francisco Earthquake, on this day in 1906, is extensively photographically documented. There are thousands of monochrome photographs, some of which I've shared before, printed in newspapers or mass-produced as postcards. There are even a few true colour photographs, made with a rare early process. 

The images in this post are stereoviews of post-earthquake scenes, photographs translated into low-quality half-tones, and then hand-tinted for commercial sale. I find them fascinating as an insight into the desires of early 20th century consumers of photography--even in documentary photographs, and even for photographs of a tragedy, applied colour was a selling point. 

New York Public Library

Workmen taking down unstable walls. Source

New York Public Library

A cracked Van Ness Avenue. Source

New York Public Library

The wrecked synagogue, Powell and Sutter Streets. Source

Un Baiser

What better day to have a dip into my dear collection of 1920s/30s French romance postcards? For the uninitiated, the genre is characterized by its embellished scenes of idealized romance--perfect for Valentine's Day! So, here is a selection of passionate (or at least passionately posed) kisses. Cynics can come back later. 

I've included the backs, because most of these postcards, especially the more romantic ones, were in fact sent between couples. So there's the real romance in addition to the staged, a meltingly lovely combination. 

personal collection

Written November 15, 1930, in Bourges, to a woman named Germaine. 

personal collection

personal collection

Written on September 20, 1923, in Berchon, from a man to a woman. 

personal collection

Written August 21, 1928, in Marennes, from Raoul to Eugenie. 

personal collection

personal collection

"Coming Attractions," Tinted

A couple months ago, Slate's wonderful history blog, The Vault, posted on the earliest "coming soon" advertisements on cinematic screens. These were hand-tinted lantern slides which would be projected before and between films. The post reproduces a number of these slides from an extensive collection held by the Cleveland Public Library. With my love of both hand-tinting and the 1920s, I was terrifically excited to discover this trend, and even more to discover the library's digitized collection of the slides exceeds 700. So I just had to share a few more, with many thanks to Rebecca Onion of The Vault. Some are for movies that are still known; others are delightfully obscure. All are very, very colourful. 

Cleveland Public Library

Orphans of the Storm (with Lilian Gish and her sister Dorothy), 1921. Source

Cleveland Public Library

Strictly Confidential, 1919. Source

Cleveland Public Library

The Runaway, with Clara Bow, 1926. Source

Mille Baisers II

As long-time followers may remember, I'm an avid collector of a certain genre of postcards most readily defined as "French romantic fantasy postcards of the 1920s and 30s" (though admittedly not most catchily). I've devoted a couple of posts to these, as well as, last year, starting them their own blog. Eventually I decided the blog format wasn't doing what I wanted to, and set out to create a more online collection-like site to share the postcards and the research I've done with them (there is currently no source that discusses them at any length, at least in English). I have many more ambitions for the site than are currently realized, but I feel it's reached the point of being meaningful to launch, with the caveat (or bonus) that much, much more is still to come. 

The new site, like the old blog, is named Mille Baisers, which is a French term of endearment often written at the ends of letters and postcards. It means "a thousand kisses." 

The site currently features about 150 of these postcards, front and back, with relevant tags and cataloging information; I have somewhere over 300 in my collection which shall be added on an ongoing basis. Here are a few favourites. 

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

Sweden, Tinted

Hand-tinted postcards are generally associated with the early decades of the 20th century. By the middle of the century, colour photomechanical printing had mostly taken over. 

I was thus delighted to find these hand-tinted postcards from Sweden in the 1950s, published by the Swedish postcard company Almquist and Cöster. The modern clothes and cars contrast with the old-school selective stencil tinting in such a striking way.

Swedish National Heritage Board

The Square in Haparanda. Source

Swedish National Heritage Board

The bar at Skrea beach in Falkenberg. Source

Swedish National Heritage Board

The camping ground at Skrea beach in Falkenberg. Source

Hand-Tinted Gardens

Hand-tinting of lantern slides tends to be garish at best, and toe-curling at worst (though also, in my opinion, almost always enjoyable!). However, there is nothing inherent about that process that dictates this result. These slides are a beautiful illustration of this fact. They come from a collection of more than 1000 held by the Library of Congress, taken by photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston from the 1890s to 1930s. The slides were projected at lectures promoting gardening. The tinting is just exquisite, bringing the best of painting to already-fine photography. 

There is apparently a book on these slides entitled Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935 by Sam Watters; I haven't seen it in person (and my graduate budget sadly precludes buying it at the moment) but it looks terrific!

Library of Congress

"Chatham," Colonel Daniel Bradford Devore house, Fredericksburg, Virginia, 1927. Source

Library of Congress

"Newmar," Senator George Almer Newhall house, 1761 Manor Drive, Hillsborough, California, 1917. Source

Library of Congress

"Armsea Hall," Charles Frederick Hoffman Jr. house, Narragansett Bay, Newport, Rhode Island, 1914.  Source

La Fête de la Sainte-Catherine

St. Catherine is, among other things, the patron saint of unmarried women. On St. Catherine's Day (25th November, ie, today) it was traditional in France for unmarried women to pray to her for a husband, and, especially if they were over 25, to send each other cards on the day. The colourful 1920s postcards I collect and feature in my other blog, Mille Baisers, were popular for this in the 20s and 30s, especially as they typically feature single women looking fabulous or women looking fabulous with the attention of an adoring man. Today, a selection from my collection! The verso of each card are included. 

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

The Paris Exposition, Tinted

As we've seen, hand-tinting was a common practice through the 19th and early 20th centuries, when colour photography was non-existent or difficult to access. Tinting can vary from subtle to intense, elegant to garish-- and, honestly, the latter of both pairs are my favourites. The colours of this set are certainly intense, though expertly applied, and certainly sometimes border on the garish. This effect is magnified by the fact many have experienced significant fading of the photograph, affecting the gelatin silver image but not the bright dyes, leading to an often surreal appearance. 

The photographs are lantern slides, precursors to film slides, positive photographs on glass meant to be projected. This set was made at the Paris Exposition of 1900, by the fine arts curator of the Brooklyn museum, William Henry Goodyear, and the photographer Joseph Hawes. The Brooklyn Museum has 271 of this set on the Flickr Commons; I've picked a few that appeal to me, but I recommend a further look! 

Brooklyn Museum

An unidentified outdoor view. Source

Brooklyn Museum

The Palace of Decorative Arts. Source

Banff in Former Days

Especially with the terrible flooding in Alberta, and especially because I'm originally from there, I thought it would be a good time for some beautiful pictures from the province.

Banff, in the Rocky Mountains, has been a tourist destination since the 1880s. The incredible Banff Springs Hotel has been around almost as long, going through a few renovations in the progress. I've put these in mostly chronological order, because I think it's fantastic to see how the landscapes (and the views photographed) stay the same, while the hotel and town change.

(By the way, that river going through the valley is the one that's currently on top of Calgary...)

Musée McCord Museum

The Banff Springs Hotel, about 1887. Source

Musée McCord Museum

The Bow River Valley from the Hotel, 1887. Source

Musée McCord Museum

The Bow River Falls, 1887. Source

Amateur Tinting

We've looked at hand-tinting before, in nineteenth century Japanese albumen prints as well as portraits of the Civil War. There's a lot of exquisite portrait tinting (and some pretty awful stuff too), but colouring of monochrome prints went even more popular than that. For the sixty or so years between the invention of snapshots and the rise of colour snapshots, loads of people went out, bought paints specifically designed for colouring prints, and added their own colour. These can range from garish and tacky to really very nice, depending on the person and their skill and care (I have to admit, I live the garish tacky ones just as much as the nice ones).

Unfortunately most institutions with online collections don't have a lot of snapshots, and/or don't upload the coloured ones much. At the moment I'm working at a photographic collection with heaps of snapshots and heaps of tacky coloured ones... but they aren't available for sharing. So, while this mix is wonderful, I've expanded the definition of "snapshot". Many of these are in fact coloured lantern slides (glass precursors to film slides) from the visual teaching collections at Oregon State University (though I don't know what they would have used most of them to illustrate), but they capture the aesthetic I'm looking for. Many thanks to the wonderful people at OSU, who share my tastes! (their collection on the Flickr Commons is pretty great all around, really).

Oregon State University

ca. 1910. Source

Oregon State University

Along Crater Lake. Source

Oregon State University

Garden, ca. 1930. Source

Japan, Tinted

People have been tinting photographs since the beginning of photographs, from touches of colour on the cheeks and lips of a daguerreotype, to splashes on cloth in a carte-de-visite, to intense dyes on commerical hand-tinted postcards. Sometimes the effect is subtle, sometimes garish, sometimes exceptionally beautiful. Today's photographs are the last. 

This set of photographs was taken by Japanese photographer Kusakabe Kimbei in the late nineteenth century. As most of his clients were foreign, and the scenes emphasize traditional activities and costumes, I beleive it is likely that they were produced as views for visitors to Japan to take home, though I'm not certain. The collection to which they belong, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, says nothing either way, unfortunately. If I discover more in the future I shall update.

Updated to add: many more tinted Japanese photographs of this time period can be found in the Harvard College Library--thanks to a Twitter follower for sharing this!

All captions are the titles given by the Museum of Photographic History.

Museum of Photographic Arts

A Tete-a-Tete. Source

Museum of Photographic Arts

A Family Group. Source

Museum of Photographic Arts

A Summer Day in the Woods. Source

Romance Postcards of the 1920s

Of course at this blog we love love, so despite my general indifference to Valentine's Day, we're going to have a series of romance-themed posts leading up to it. Today, a selection from my personal collection. Hand-coloured photo postcards like these were popular from the late 1900s to the early 1930s, though the romance ones were especially big in the 1920s and 1930s. They were made in France, but quite popular in England as well. 

The dyes are exceptionally bright, brighter in person than in reproduction. Some of them also have a metallic sheen. Many are written, but in French (of which I know very little) so full/better translations will have to wait. Interestingly, none of the written ones were mailed or intended to be (no address, writing over the spot for the stamp, etc), so they must have been given to the recipients. I am still working on researching the social context, but for now, aren't they grand? 

[Since the original post I have collected several hundred of these cards and done a heap of research with them-- visit my site Mille Baisers for an online collection and more information!)

Personal collection

The handwriting is this one is very hard to read but with words like "beloved" and "tender" in it (in French), I think we can say it's a love note. 

Personal collection

Dated the 29th of September, but no year. "In response to your sweet letter, take my dearest love, my best kisses, and my good thoughts.Soon, Marie." (translated)

Personal collection

Dated 17 June, 1924. The back is packed with writing in purple ink from Raymond to Irene.

The Civil War, Tinted

I haven't had a people of the civil war post in a long time, which is a shame as the photographs are striking to look at and started me into this blog in the first place. Fortunately I got sucked into the Library of Congress's collection for a few hours today (when I should have been studying for a photo history exam, ironically), so I have rather a lot of material now to draw from! Expect more of this in the coming months. 

Today's theme: hand-tinting. People were crazy about photography right away, but sad it didn't yet come in colour. So a market sprung up for the tinting of photographs with paints, aided by the fact that photography put many former painters of miniatures out of work. They tinted daguerreotypes (like this one), and when they moved on to tintypes, ambrotypes, and glass negative-paper photography, they tinted those even more. You almost always see some degree of tinting in ambrotypes and higher-end tintypes, especially the cheeks. Jewellery and buttons are also often painted with gold. (just glance through this post of civil war portraits!). However, it didn't always stop there. Parts of clothing, all the clothing, parts of the backdrop, tablecloths... all were potentially coloured. Sometimes this is a nice effect. Sometime it's.... not. (Though, granted, sometimes the different rates of deterioration in the imaging substance and the paints means the colour looks more drastic today than it did originally. Sometimes, though, it was just flat out badly done).

Portraits were done very widely in the civil war, as ambrotypes and tintypes, and there was a similar wide variety of tinting going on.

From the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress

A Confederate captain. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier with bayoneted musket. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Unidentified Confederate soldier. Ambrotype. Source