Today we see a full portrait of a woman in a lovely 1890s gown. The sleeves are a bit poufed at the shoulders, the waist is small and the skirt flares over the hips to fall in an inverted U shape. She has some fancy jewelry at her throat and quite lovely ruffles on the bottom of her skirt. The chair leaves something to be desired, but it’s a prop after all.
Her photographer was Tomlinson Bros in Hannibal, MO. Of course, I can’t think of Hannibal without thinking of Tom Sawyer.
Once upon a time in Des Moines, IA, this lovely lady went to the L. H. Freeborn & Son studio to have her portrait made. They had her stand with a chair covered with some feathers or foliage of some kind. She looks like she’s a bit uncertain of the whole process. Her dress, however, is quite fashionable. It surely has a bustle which you can’t see here, and it features the appearance of a vest or second layer under the bodice, although it would have been one garment. In my mind, this is a soft rose pink with green velvet trimmings. Quite fashionable!
Only two photos remain in the Dobb Long Book. One of these days I will get around to dedicating an entire page to the album, but in the meantime if you want to look at the full book, click on the category “Dobb Long Book” over there to the right.
This is a proud Sepia Saturday post. Please click through to view interesting and inspiring sepia images from around the world.
Here we have a photo of a serene woman in the side profile. She has tiny earrings and a bar pin at the base of her collar. Her hair was dressed into a chignon and there is some sort of comb on top. Mostly though, she has beautiful trim on her dress. I see this dress in a soft brown with black trim and buttons. The trim is very uniform; it could be machine made, or it could be painstakingly applied with incredible attention to detail. Regardless, it is a lovely Celtic type of pattern that weaves around itself.
The photographer was Clench or Oench, in Iowa City, IA. That’s a tricky one, there are lots of sports teams that were in a clench over one thing or another in Iowa.
This hair style says “swoop” to me. Perhaps this fellow is sitting for his college graduation, maybe as a doctor or a lawyer? He is nattily dressed, with trim on his jacket lapels and vest, crisp collar points and a neatly tied cravat.
The photographer was Leon & Co in Nashville, IL. Funny, you never really hear about this Nashville, always the “other” one.
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.
Who Were They? 