I think the boy on the right is not happy with the wobbly and precarious seat given to his sibling. He is clearly holding onto the child behind her (?) back to keep her from falling. I think the seated baby is a girl because of the rather large necklace she is wearing. You can see her bloomers peeping out from under her skirt too, which is insanely cute. The boy’s dress is a hybrid between skirts and short pants. He might have going through the potty training stages, which merited short pants, but still had accidents which merited a skirt.
I can’t read the name of the photographer. Any guesses?
UPDATE: Iggy found a photographer named Jacob Esterline located in Scranton, PA between about 1870-1915. This card is a dark maroon, which gives us the dates of 1885-1895 for this photo.
I believe the photographer was J. W. Easterline, of Scranton, Pennsylvania. I think he was active 1870?-1915.
This might be Jacob “Jake” Easterline. I’m not sure.
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Here we go –
“Easterline, Jacob, 308 Lackawanna Av photographer”
Source – http://www.millerbeanfh.com/Interesting/1890%20Census/Scranton_1890_Census.txt
Easterline Jacob W. married Dony, Adelaide M. in 1891. His parents were Edward N. and Phoebe Ann? Easterline. Her parents were Rev. F. A. and Sarah E.? Dony.
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Esterline it is -as soon as I read your comment the words on the photo made perfect sense to me!
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The little boys outfit skirt/short combo reminds me of our vintage bathing suits. Insanely cute but a pain to get in and out of. I can see where an accident might happen.
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Holding my breath that the photo session ended well..what a conglomeration of chairs/booster seat type thing. Cute kids..I liked your explanation of the pants/skirt..the other possibility is that it was winter time:)
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