Comprehensive Study Guide: Early American History, Daguerreotype Distortions, Victorian Post-Mortem Photography, and Photographic Processes

Early American Insurrections and Emigration

• Burkhart's Fair Ferry Insurrection: An aborted attempt to end slavery in America was carried out through an insurrection led at Burkhart's Fair Ferry in Virginia. The leader was arrested, tried, and harmed.

• African American Emigration to Liberia: In the early $1860\text{s}$, many African Americans left the United States to settle in Liberia, West Africa, with the explicit objective of establishing a new free Black nation.

Camera Optics and Technical Distortions in Early Photography

• Lens and Chemistry Limitations: Early photographic processes suffered from severe optical lens defects and rudimentary chemical developments, creating distinct physical distortions in portraits.

• Distortion Characteristics:

  • Bulging Eyes: Poor camera lenses and chemistry made subjects' eyes appear to project or bulge unnaturally out of their heads.

  • Spatial Depth Inability: Early camera lenses could not judge relative physical distance accurately compared to modern camera optics.

  • Foreground Enlargement: Objects positioned in the first plane of sight (closest to the camera lens) appeared disproportionately massive. For example, a subject's forward-held hand would appear large enough to cover an entire adult face.

• Three Primary Technical Distortions:

  • Extreme proportion distortion (excessively large hands).

  • Lens failure in depth and distance judgment.

  • Facial feature and ocular bulging distortions.

• Studio Sets and Standard Artifacts:

  • Photographers utilized standardized studio designs, backdrops, and props (such as emeralds and specific decorative elements) tailored for standard portraits, including college senior pictures.

  • Examples of these standard 19th-century studio props are preserved and displayed at the Smithsonian.

Archaeological and Photographic Field Expedition Anecdote

• Expedition Grant Details: Four ($4$) college seniors applied for and received a grant from the New York Hispanic Society (distinguished from the New York Historical Society) to travel through Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras over a two-month ($2\,\text{month}$) duration.

• Objectives and Roles:

  • Purpose: Document and photograph traditional native craft-making processes across remote village communities.

  • Team Division: Two ($2$) team members served as specialized photographers, while two ($2$) served as documenters responsible for detailed written notes and field sketches.

• Itinerary and Incident:

  • The expedition traveled in a Volkswagen (VW) van, beginning in Mexico and driving deep into isolated mountain communities far removed from urban centers.

  • The team was robbed of all their belongings, equipment, and resources, leaving them with no remaining supplies.

  • The team was required to walk miles on foot to reach Guatemala City, Guatemala.

19th-Century Studio Design and Child Posing Mechanics

• Studio Architectural Design:

  • Studios were constructed with large skylights to admit maximum natural light into the operating space.

  • Maximizing natural light was mandatory to decrease exposure duration times.

• Posing and Physical Stabilization Techniques:

  • Long exposure requirements required physical stabilization of human subjects to prevent motion blur.

  • Group subjects were bunched tightly together, maintaining continuous physical contact with one another or resting on artificial studio props, such as fake gray pedestals (e.g., family portraits where the mother, father, and son physically held onto the patriarch to maintain stability).

  • Child Stabilization Belts: To hold young children motionless, photographers bound children around the waist to the back of a chair or floor rug using a specialized photographer's belt (rather than a dress belt or rope).

• Compositional Inclusions and Unnatural Posing:

  • Painted Portraits of Deceased Relatives: Mothers incorporated painted portraits of deceased husbands/fathers directly into live family photographs to maintain a complete family record.

  • Enslaved Caregivers: Enslaved Black women were occasionally included in child portraits due to their primary role in raising the family's children, representing an exceptionally rare historical portrait dynamic.

  • Floating Appearance: Photographers lacked developed compositional posing methods, resulting in unnatural visual arrangements where children or siblings appeared to float in mid-air.

• Commercial Studio Application (Sears Portrait Studio):

  • An art school graduate named Tom, unable to support his wife and two ($2$) young children through independent art sales, accepted employment in the children's division of a Sears portrait studio during the $1960\text{s}$.

• Composition in Erotic Photography:

  • Victorian pornographic and erotic imagery relied on subjects making direct eye contact with the viewer while explicitly smiling.

  • The explicit smile and direct gaze were deliberate mechanical techniques designed to engage the viewer directly and facilitate personal fantasy.

Victorian Post-Mortem and Funerary Photography Practices

• Commercial Educational Photography vs. Historical Home Photography:

  • Modern institutional photography firms, such as "On Location" based in Poughkeepsie, are contracted by institutions like Meredith University (Marist) for campus graduations and athletic events.

  • Victorian post-mortem photography was conducted directly inside private homes on the exact day of burial, representing one of the few instances where photographers brought equipment to private residences.

• Child Mortality Rates and Historical Diseases:

  • An estimated $45\%$ of all children under the age of four ($4$) died before reaching four ($4$) years of age.

  • High mortality rates were driven by widespread infectious diseases, including yellow fever, scarlet fever, and typhus, in an era preceding modern medicine and vaccines.

• Staging Post-Mortem Photographs in the Home:

  • Deceased infants and children were laid out on household furniture, such as a settee or sofa.

  • The furniture piece was moved directly adjacent to a window, and heavy Victorian drapes were taken down to maximize natural lighting.

  • These images were private personal keepsakes that were never publicly displayed; they were stored away in drawers and closet boxes, explaining their high modern survival rate.

• Specialized Infant Funeral Baskets:

  • Baskets known as the "deceased baby and unveiled black grape canopies basket" were custom Victorian designs created specifically for infants under nine ($9\,\text{months}$) months of age.

  • The rented basket was draped in black cloth or fabric.

  • The infant was arranged within the basket holding religious items, such as a rosary with a crucifix.

  • Symbolic Comfort: The imagery depicted the deceased infant as an angel being elevated out of the black shadow of death into a new life, alleviating parental suffering.

• Professional Specialization:

  • Families contracted specialized post-mortem photographers who exclusively performed death photography rather than standard portrait photography.

• Hair Weaving Keepsakes:

  • On the day of burial, families frequently clipped locks of hair from the deceased child.

  • The hair was taken to a specialized hair weaver to be crafted into intricate woven mourning artifacts and jewelry.

• Cultural Practices and Modern Comparisons:

  • In Jamaican cultural traditions, taking detailed photographs of deceased relatives inside open coffins during wakes and funerals is standard practice. A Poughkeepsie-raised student of Jamaican parentage experienced significant cultural discomfort when sent to Jamaica to photograph her deceased uncle in his casket.

  • Wives of military personnel killed in action have been photographed touching their deceased husbands in open caskets immediately prior to final closure.

Questions & Discussion: Graduation Photographs vs. Funerary Images

• Question: Can high school graduation photographs be interpreted as having a funerary nature, or is that an excessive conceptual stretch?

• Student Response 1: If the individual depicted in the photograph has passed away, the image retroactively acquires a funerary context due to the death. However, if all depicted individuals remain living, the photograph remains strictly a celebration of graduation.

• Student Response 2: High school graduation photographs represent positive, memorable life events. Applying the term "funerary" is an extreme stretch; describing graduation pictures as capturing a "bittersweet" transition is far more appropriate than equating them with death.

Daguerreotype Jewelry, Tombstone Memorials, and Calotype Innovations

• Mourning Jewelry and Tombstone Photography:

  • Women wore specialized mourning brooches containing pre-mortem portraits of deceased spouses created during their lifetime.

  • Because daguerreotypes were produced on silver plates and protected under glass, Victorians routinely extracted the silver plate and glass assembly from its leather case and cemented it directly onto outdoor cemetery tombstones (e.g., tombstone portrait for Richard Olsen).

• Calotype Development and Photographic Experimentation:

  • Process advancements in calotype printing produced superior image depth and sound visual clarity.

  • Instructors and experienced technicians guided practitioners on proper calotype print development methods, including photographing fine artwork and conducting experimental technical setups.