Photos, whee!
Sep. 5th, 2009 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elabyWe got back from Vermont yesterday, and it's so wonderful to have three whole days before we have to go back to work. Yay for Labor Day! We stayed at a beautiful Victorian inn where I went nuts for the architecture and tried (with limited success) to map the whole place. I couldn't quite figure out the outside shape - that is, they gave us a very bare-bones map, but I had serious issues reconciling it with the inside - so I just drew up how I thought the inside worked. There were lots of fascinating little sets of staircases that led to other halls full of rooms, and they obviously were shorter than the staircase that went down to the ground floor, so the whole place had to have multiple levels. It was so neat. Anyway, the awesome Victorianness propelled me into finally scanning those pictures I bought when we went antiquing.
Old photographs are surprisingly inexpensive around here, especially compared to the other stuff you find at antique stores.
I was really struck by this lady. She has a very intent expression, and she's one of the very few people I saw in all of hundreds of photographs I looked at that day who looked like she might be of a decent besides northwestern European. The year printed on the back of this is 1880.
This lady looks like she's of a somewhat later period (if anybody has a guess, feel free). I like her because she has glasses, and this looks like a graduation photograph to me.
Oooh, this was a tintype! There were a whole bunch of them in little embossed cards, and I chose this one because she's got interesting hair. It's got a name written in pencil along the bottom, and as far as I can tell, it says "Ellen B. Lobman (or Lolman, maybe?) March 3d 1869".
And a guy! I really like his glasses (pince nez, hee!) and his collar... and whatever he's got in his pocket. And his ring is neat, and his watch-chain! He looks like a nice respectable gentleman :3 No date, and men's clothing doesn't change quickly enough that I can tell, non-expert that I am.
This one isn't dated either. I like the way she's looking off-camera, with the light from behind her. Her one-shoulder ruffle is, um, interesting ^^;; but I really like her hair comb.
Hee, I love this lady XD She's so happy, and normally people don't smile at all in these pictures. I was lucky to find them looking serene, even, since most of them looked very serious. I have no idea when she's from either, but she definitely looks like she's wearing a corset (hung with tassels, no less!). I wonder if she's an actress.
This is one of my favorite pictures. He's so little! He looks like he's about 16. He can't be very old, anyway, just old enough to grow that moustache :3 He's got a cute little bow-tie, and a watch chain, and aww.
I liked this one because I'd seen so few that were almost from the back like this. It shows her hairstyle really well, and the details of her collar.
That's it for pictures! Now here are a bunch of ads from magazines, clipped out and pasted to posterboard and sold for something like five for a dollar. It was awesome. They amused me to no end XD
Coats! Very dashing :3
A corset ad and bizarre sentence structure all in one ad! "As Graceful as the New Woman all the time - at work, a-wheel, in negligee - is she who wears a G-D Bicycle Waist." *giggles* Just one dollar! 18-30 inch waists!
I thought this was pretty. Nice hat, too.
Corsets of all sorts! For every imaginable occasion!
Ahaha, this is my favorite XD Protect your home from moustachioed burglars with the Dow Pocket Door-Fastener! Looks like he forgot his black silk mask.
I bought this one because it has fairies playing in a soup tureen. End of story. Note their hats! A top hat, two different acorn-caps, and what looks like a cobweb (but is suspiciously similar to Holmes's "earflapped traveling cap").
I just had an epiphany - the reason I've been spelling the word traveling "wrong" for so long is that I persist in using the British English "travelling" with two Ls! That makes me feel better.
Old photographs are surprisingly inexpensive around here, especially compared to the other stuff you find at antique stores.
I was really struck by this lady. She has a very intent expression, and she's one of the very few people I saw in all of hundreds of photographs I looked at that day who looked like she might be of a decent besides northwestern European. The year printed on the back of this is 1880.
This lady looks like she's of a somewhat later period (if anybody has a guess, feel free). I like her because she has glasses, and this looks like a graduation photograph to me.
Oooh, this was a tintype! There were a whole bunch of them in little embossed cards, and I chose this one because she's got interesting hair. It's got a name written in pencil along the bottom, and as far as I can tell, it says "Ellen B. Lobman (or Lolman, maybe?) March 3d 1869".
And a guy! I really like his glasses (pince nez, hee!) and his collar... and whatever he's got in his pocket. And his ring is neat, and his watch-chain! He looks like a nice respectable gentleman :3 No date, and men's clothing doesn't change quickly enough that I can tell, non-expert that I am.
This one isn't dated either. I like the way she's looking off-camera, with the light from behind her. Her one-shoulder ruffle is, um, interesting ^^;; but I really like her hair comb.
Hee, I love this lady XD She's so happy, and normally people don't smile at all in these pictures. I was lucky to find them looking serene, even, since most of them looked very serious. I have no idea when she's from either, but she definitely looks like she's wearing a corset (hung with tassels, no less!). I wonder if she's an actress.
This is one of my favorite pictures. He's so little! He looks like he's about 16. He can't be very old, anyway, just old enough to grow that moustache :3 He's got a cute little bow-tie, and a watch chain, and aww.
I liked this one because I'd seen so few that were almost from the back like this. It shows her hairstyle really well, and the details of her collar.
That's it for pictures! Now here are a bunch of ads from magazines, clipped out and pasted to posterboard and sold for something like five for a dollar. It was awesome. They amused me to no end XD
Coats! Very dashing :3
A corset ad and bizarre sentence structure all in one ad! "As Graceful as the New Woman all the time - at work, a-wheel, in negligee - is she who wears a G-D Bicycle Waist." *giggles* Just one dollar! 18-30 inch waists!
I thought this was pretty. Nice hat, too.
Corsets of all sorts! For every imaginable occasion!
Ahaha, this is my favorite XD Protect your home from moustachioed burglars with the Dow Pocket Door-Fastener! Looks like he forgot his black silk mask.
I bought this one because it has fairies playing in a soup tureen. End of story. Note their hats! A top hat, two different acorn-caps, and what looks like a cobweb (but is suspiciously similar to Holmes's "earflapped traveling cap").
I just had an epiphany - the reason I've been spelling the word traveling "wrong" for so long is that I persist in using the British English "travelling" with two Ls! That makes me feel better.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 11:14 pm (UTC)as her dress has a "military" look to it
Ooh, you're right. You're so smart! I didn't think about those connections.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 10:36 pm (UTC)Nah. I'm just old. *gigglesnort*
I didn't know the bobbie socks-saddle shoes thing was that early. Cool!
This is kind of interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_soxer
as is this:
http://century.guardian.co.uk/1940-1949/Story/0,,127764,00.html
I do remember seeing in old 40's movies teenage girls wearing rolled up jeans and bobby socks.
Ooh, you're right. You're so smart! I didn't think about those connections.
It's all that watching Gone With the Wind so many times. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 12:44 am (UTC)It's SO interesting, the evolution of fans and fandom! It says there that Frank Sinatra was the first idol singer, and I'm pretty sure the first "fandoms" started with serials in the 1800's. I wonder what made people start getting so into these things? Probably the spread of literacy, and as a result, the more widespread audiences. People could talk about stuff they read or saw on stage or listened to, when radio came around, with more people.