Midwestern Carte de Visite Family Album
Chiefly Coldwater, Michigan: ca. 1860s. Very Good-. Item #48817
Chiefly Coldwater, Michigan: ca. 1860s and later. Leather bound family album (15 cm); black leather tooled and stamped in gilt with brass clasp also wrapped in black leather and small rounded feet to back cover, white silk moire endsheets with printed and gilded "title" page; 34pp; 25 carte de visite photographs mounted in most cardstock page windows. Boards scuffed and rubbed with mild wear to corners and creasing to spine. Remnants of postage(?) to front cover. Interior cloth binding shaky but holding. Interior edges toned. Most windows intact with minor tears, while others show more wear or are missing the bottom of the frame altogether. Most pages marked in pencil with individual names or identifiers, like "Hugh Clarke" or "Uncle Ed." Majority of photographs taken in Michigan, with a handful from Chicago, one from Milwaukee and at least two from New York. Two include 1880 as the production date, while another is noted in pencil "March 1864." Overall an about Very Good example of 19th century family portraiture, intended for the parlor table.
Most photos were produced by photographers in Michigan, including H. Schaefer "German Artist," C.T Cornwell, C.S. Wolcott, J.E. Watson, E. Kindmark, and Carson and Graham. Baldwin and Edwin Brand from Chicago are also represented. All but one are of single-subjects, the outlier a sweet one of two sisters, heads leaned together gazing into the distance.
While we were unable to identify most of the individuals, the first photograph is likely of a three-month-old Hugh W. Clarke, who became a druggist in Coldwater, Michigan. He was described by his Rotary Club newsletter in 1921 as "The human crab. Would find fault with Heaven if he ever got there. Runs a drug store and loves his wife and family."
Price: $500.00