This 1870s-80s image features an attractive woman in heavily embellished dress. Note all the tiny pleats that surround the front of the bodice, as well as the netted trim on her neck tie. It has been carefully laid flat to show off the handiwork. Netting is among the lace techniques that I have never learned …
This carte de visite photograph carries no back mark or other identifying information, leaving the handsome soul to be lost to the ages as unknown. I am guessing at the decade 1880s for the vintage of the image but I could be off by 10 years or more. I really don’t know much about men’s …
I suspect this might be another transition dress – a dress from the 1860s that has been remade to suit the changing skirt styles of the 1870s. The volumes of fabric used on 1860s and earlier skirts made these prime candidates for remaking as skirt fashions changed. There was plenty of extra fabric to work …
This older fellow is identified as Jacob Black. Mr Black looks a bit like a pragmatist to me. He is accepting of this photograph sitting, perhaps because Mrs Black wants it. He sat for his image at W. H. Whitehead’s Parlor Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.
We don’t much send New Year greetings anymore. I suspect the proximity of Christmas to New Year’s dampens the desire to address cards and write letters. In our modern society, sending Christmas cards is almost a rarity anymore. Younger generations find them wasteful, Gen Xers want to send them but instead deal with the guilt …
Who Were They? 