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Preserving Your Family Photographs | |
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Proving the Point
Is this Winslow Farr, Sr. (who lived from 1794 to 1865) with his sixth wife and their child, or is it someone else? Dean R. Anderson, who sent me this photo, believes this is Winslow, but other family members say "not so fast." Anderson wants the evidence to make his case. Here's how the clues stack up:
Photographer: Clearly printed on the back of the image is the following information: E. Martin. Photographer, East Temple St., Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. A quick glance at Carl Mautz's Biographies of Western Photographers (Carl Mautz, $85) tells me Edward Martin was born in Preston, England, and traveled with Mormons to Salt Lake City from Nauvoo, Ill., in 1846. By 1865, he was operating a photo studio with John Olsen, taking pictures of prominent church members and scenes of Salt Lake City. He died in 1882. This photo's imprint makes no mention of a partner, suggesting it was taken prior to 1865—but when?
Type of photo: The photographic method offers a clue. Without a doubt, this little paper print is a carte d'visite—a photographic technique that first appeared in the mid-1850s. Double-line edging and plain backgrounds further narrow the time frame between 1860 and 1865. At that time, was Winslow the right age to be in this picture?
Ages of the subjects: The baby is approximately one year old based on his or her size. The mother is a young woman, probably in her early 20s, and the man could be in his 30s. At the time of the earliest carte d'visites in the mid 1850s, Farr would already have been in his 50s, too old to be the man in this family portrait.
Clothing and props: Now that we've made an initial assessment based on the image, imprint and ages of the individuals, it's time to piece together the rest of the story based on clothing and props. The young mother wears a checkered fabric skirt with a dropped-shoulder blouse and sleeves gathered at the wrist. This style was popular in the early 1860s. A woman wearing a similar outfit appears in Joan Severa's Dressed for the Photographer (Kent State University Press, $65). The father wears a long, loose sack coat over a vest with a small collar, along with the standard white shirt, trousers and boots, also common in the early 1860s. Fringed-seat chairs with no arms or a single arm appear in photographs throughout the decade.
It's clear this picture was taken in the early 1860s, when Farr would've been in his 60s, much too old to be the strapping father shown here. A pedigree chart of Farr's children might solve the riddle: Who's young enough to be in this picture, but old enough to be one of Farr's children? A baby born in the early 1860s would clinch the ID.
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