Figure 1 Wives wanted, Montana 1901. In the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Online dating services have become an integral part of our culture and modus operandi. But what did people do before the internet? Last night, I came across the photograph of Figure 1, which offers one solution attempted (we don’t know if they were successful, but hope they were) by a group of gentlemen in frontier Montana in 1901. Well, the wild west could be a mighty lonely place. We are told that these are early residents of Lake McDonald, left to right Bill Dauks, Fred Gedhun, Esli Apgar, and Dimon Apgar. Also, just like on today’s social media these fellas are advertising their sensitivity by “posting” pictures of their pets!

Figure 1 – Barricades on the Rue Saint-Maur, before the attack, June 25, 1848. Daguerreotype in the collection of theMusée d’Orsay (Paris); (Image reference : 02CE10881/PHO2002-41 — 02CE10879/PHO 2002-42) and in the public domain because of its age.

All of this talk about nineteenth century photography keeps taking me to its origins in France. Those were unsettled times in France. I have always found 19th century French history enormously complex. But it bears the indelible fact that Democracy is a fragile dedication, and you cannot take it for granted. In 1830 Charles X was forced to abdicate and Louis Philippe, the Bourgeois Monarch, assumed the throne.  Louis Phillipe was a businessman and he exploited his monarchy to become enormously wealthy. On the surface, he claimed to be a supporter of the little business man (the petite bourgeoisie). Reality was otherwise. Discord fermented, Workers lost their jobs, bread prices rose, and people accused the government of corruption. Alexis de Tocqueville put it succinctly,

“We are sleeping together in a volcano. … A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon.”

In February of 1848, a revolution toppled King Louis Philippe and established an elected government, the Second Republic, to rule France. This government steered an increasingly conservative course. On June 23, 1848, the people of Paris rose in insurrection. This is the June Days Uprising by Paris’ workers.  Again, democracy was fragile. On December 2, 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President of the Second Republic, largely on peasant support. Exactly four years later he suspended the elected assembly, establishing the Second French Empire, which lasted until 1870 and the Franco-Prussian War.

As we look forward, we should look back. And here photography once again gives us the frozen in silver opportunity. Figure 1 is a daguerreotype showing the barricades along the Rue Saint-Maur before the attack on June 25, 1848. What connects us in human terms are the apartment windows looking over the street, the man working on the barricades, and the store advertisements on the sides of the building – the chocolate shop.To me it is amazingly eerie in the mood that it creates and the remarkable clarity and sharpness.

Figure 1 – Image by Marc Gambier of Rose Zazel, the “first female human canonball.” In the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Yesterday I discussed the work of Marc Gambier (1838-1900), who was the gre,at colorist for Napoleon Sarony. As with other people who were trained by Sarony, Gambier ultimately went on to open his own photographic studio. Gambier was trained in France as a draughtsman and miniature painter. He fled the unrest, and starvation, of the Franco-Prussian War, in which he fought in 1870. He came to the United States in 1871. In 1879 he formed a partnership with the painter J. J. Schlumberger, called “Marc & Schlum.” Two years later Schluberger left the business and Gambier remained in his Broadway Studio until financial difficulties forced him to focus on painting.Like Sarony, much of Gambier’s photographs were of Broadway celebrities. What is significant of his work is that while Sarony waited for his subjects to come to him, Gambier took his camera to the celebrity.

I could not resist illustrating this blog with a cabinet card portrait by Gambier of Miss Rose Zazel, who was  the first female “human canonball.” Notice that she is wearing her namesake rose as well as the feminine touches of a necklace, bracelet, and earrings. And, of course, the costume was rather risque for the day. At one point, Rose toured with the PT Barnum Circus. Eventually, she unfortunately suffered a career ending injury, missing her safety net and breaking her back.

Figure 1 – Hand-tinted image (c. 1879) by Napoleon Sarony of stage actress Linda Dietz.

In the nineteenth century, the great failing of photography was the fact that it rendered a polychromatic world in mere black and white, And the first solution to this problem was to tint photographs with colored pigments by hand. These could be crayons, oil paints, pastels, and water-colors. Hand-coloring was an art onto itself, and there were great practitioners. Of course, artistic tastes have swung full circle, and today black and white photography is considered its own art form, one that exalts form and tonality uncontaminated by color.

It is believed that the first hand-colored daguerreotypes were the work of Swiss artist Johann Baptist Isenring. Isenring used a mixture of gum arabic and pigments to colour daguerreotypes. Colored powder was fixed on the delicate surface of the daguerreotype by the application of heat. Patents were filed on variations of this technique in 1842 by Richard Beard in England and by Étienne Lecchi in France, and subsequently in 1845 by Léotard de Leuze. From there, hand-coloring evolved with the medium. Albumin prints and lantern slides were hand-colored.

Figure 1 is a particularly gorgeous example of 1870’s hand-colored. Talented work always stands out. The image is of the actress Linda Dietz. It was taken by the great 19th century portraitist Napoleon Sarony, whom we have spoken about before, and is one of his famous Broadway Series, photographs of celebrities of the day.  Given the quality and period of the work, it seems likely to have been done by Sarony’s master colorist, Marc Gambier.

The level of detail in the coloration amazes me. Notice for instance, the complexity of color in the feathers of the hat and the details of the gown. It is also of interest that the symmetry of the coloration of the cheeks is not quite right – a definite indication that this was added afterwards.

As for the beautiful Miss Dietz. While primarily an actress, she was highly sought after as a model. A particularly famous portrait of her was painted by William Merritt Chase in 1878. She made her stage debut in 1870, replacing Fanny Davenport in “Fernande” at Daly’s 5th Avenue Theatre. Subsequently, she joined Daly’s company and then Union Square Theatre in 1876. At Union Square she generally received excellent reviews, although there is a particularly nasty review from the New York Times. In 1879 Dietz tried her hand abroad, joining the Hare and Kendal company at the St. James Theatre in London and then the Haymarket, and the Court. She returned to New York in 1887, but was never able to fully rekindle her career.

For us, this image stands as a lovely moment from the Belle Époque – Miss Dietz in her stunning and delicate pale-blue crinoline. The great photographer Sarony and his colorist Gambier collaborated to preserve the moment forever.

Figure 1 – The Great Ohio Clock in the United States Senate being set forward in 1918 for the first daylight savings day. In the public domain because it was taken by a US government employee.

On Friday I had my last drive home from work in the light until next March. Fall back to Standard Time – hiss, boo to that. They have plunged me into darkness again. So I started wondering, who exactly the evil they is. Needless-to-say it is our otherwise do nothing congress – indeed they have failed to weigh in on this controversy in a while. So I thought that I would do some research. And here’s a major surprise, it’s not a simple story.

During World War I DST was enacted by congress in the United States with the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918.  This established time zones and set DST to begin on March 31, 1918 and end on October 27, 1918. This was not a popular concept and congress actually had to override President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Even so, DST was a state by state option until World War II when President Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round DST, which he called “War Time”, on February 9, 1942. It lasted until the last Sunday in September 1945. After 1945 things went back to state by state, and worse each state could decide on the inclusive dates. What a confusion especially for trains and buses and airplane schedules.

Indeed, it was the transportation industry that lobbied successfully for passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-387). Then in 1973 during the oil embargol Congress, in an effort to conserve fuel, enacted a trial period of year-round DST.

In 1986, Congress enacted P.L. 99-359, amending the Uniform Time Act by changing the beginning of DST to the first Sunday in April and having the end remain the last Sunday in October. Then in 2005 the Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended DST to begin on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November. And there basically we are. I know, I know, what a big yawn.

But here we are on the verge of a very historic election. So it is relevant to share the photograph of Figure 1, which shows the Great Ohio Clock on the first daylight savings day in 1918. This Ohio Clock has, since 1859, been in or near the United States Senate Chamber. Shown are: Senate Sergeant at Arms Charles P. Higgins turning the Ohio Clock forward, Senators William M. Calder, Willard Saulsbury, Jr., and Joseph T. Robinson. Think of it, that clock summoned the United States Senate into session in time of great national crisis, the American Civil War, World War I, World War Two, and 9/11. After the Republican victory in the mid-term elections of 2010, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proudly announced his agenda. ““The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Didn’t work out so well, I guess.  But really, for any of us. Here’s the thing, discord was spread on all sides, and The Ohio Clock stopped at 12:14 pm on October 9, 2013. The curators who cared for the great clock were furloughed due to the government shutdown. I am reminded of Goethe’s Faust describing his own end and suggest that we all think on Tuesday of this tragic figure, who made a pact with the devil.

“Die Uhr mag stehn, der Zeiger fallen,
Es sei die Zeit für mich vorbei!”

“The clock may stop, the clock-hands fall,
And time come to an end for me!”

Figure 1 – Club moss

The most obvious feature, as I walk in the woods now, is the lost leaves on the ground and the opening of the light onto the forest floor. It can be both dramatic and beautiful. So I find myself looking downward – always a good idea if you don’t want to fall on your face or have your ankles become so much snake food, and one of the things that I have spotted are the delicate club mosses of Figure 1. This is Diphasiastrum digitatum also known as groundcedar, running cedar or crowsfoot. What they really look like are miniature pine trees which they are not. But they were once widely distributed as a form of Christmas greenery – indeed, almost to the point of decimation. The lycophytes themselves have survived longer than the profession of lycophyte-picker. And, of course, your mind lapses into images of prehistoric forests. These have been around for a very long time.,

What I remember most fondly about the club mosses is that my father taught me, when I was in the Boy Scouts, that you could use these little plants to scrub out your pots and pans. They were in essence “nature’s own Brillo pads.”

You will note in Figure 1, how the lower plant has at about 3 o’clock a little brown shoot. This is the fruiting body that produces spore. I pulled gently at one and there was a microcloud of dusty release. We have, in fact, previously spoken about these oily spore. Because of their combustibility and high surface to volume ratio, this Lycopodium powder, used as an early flash-powder for photography. While they exploded on ignition they were still a lot safer than magnesium powder.

Figure 1 – A Kodak Pocket-Instamatic 20 from the early 1970’s.

The big weekly event, in my hometown, is Saturday at the Town Dump. We have this place called the “put and take,” which is just that, you put and you take. The key is to put at least as much as you take, unless you have a barn. So I like to look around for old cameras. You are not likely to find anything profound or valuable. It’s just a trip down memory lane.

As Figure 1 testifies, this past weekend I found an old Kodak Instamatic 20 from the 1970’s. It used 110 film cassettes and is truly representative of the pinnacle of photographics mediocrity. Pop your little film cassette in, send it out to be printed, and you get back all these fuzzy poor quality images. Indeed, they weren’t really worth the appellation of images. But George Eastman had truly triumphed. The only thing worse was Polaroid Instant photography. I know that I’m making enemies here. So I’ll stop.

But look at that little camera, a truly pocket-sized camera and you start to realize that despite it’s clunking mechanical 1970’s design, you are truly looking at the forerunner of the camera in your cellphone. That is the archetype, that is where the world was trending to, or is it from.  The concept was firmly there as was Kodak’s ultimate fall from grace. Kosaks were opening in strip malls, one hour photo service-centers in every chain drugstore,

So really let’s have some respect and take this little trip down memory lane. OK; so here’s a television commercial of Dick Van Dyke advertising the Instamatic pocket camera. The Kodak Pocket Instamatic 20 camera was manufactured from 1972 until 1976. With film, it weighs 162 gms. That’s 5.71 oz. The metric system being another failed American experiment of the day. It was initially sold for $28, which is equivalent to about $160 today.

Figure 1 – Possibly the earliest photograph of a cat. From the Houghton Library at Harvard University and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

All of this dog and cat stuff is bringing us awfully close to “cute and cuddly animal pictures,” and I don’t want to be accused of that. So perhaps it is time to close this particular discussion with the image of Figure 1 of a daguerreotype showing a kitten in Harvard University’s Houghton Library.

According to Harvard this may, in fact be, the earliest cat photograph ever taken, or at least existing. It is rather blurred unfortunately; so the inherent cuteness of this long ago kitty is not really clear. And since all we can really say is that this image dates from somewhere between 1840 and 1860, it may well have competitors for “first” from the many daguerreotypes of “child with cat,” “woman with cat,” and “man with cat.”

While we ailurophiles and people dodging doggie doo-doo on the sidewalk know the answer, ultimately, photography is mute on the subject of which is the better or nobler pet, a cat or a dog. Imagine that you live in ancient Egypt in a home potentially filled with scorpions, rats, and snakes. It was your cat that protected you ever so fiercely. The lioness goddess Bastet was fiercely protective and warlike. As a result cats were sacred to Bast and they were mummified. Herodotus described how, when there was a fire, people would guard it to be certain that no cat ran into the flame. This does not speak to a great familiarity with the behavior of cats. When a cat died, the household would go into mourning just like for a human relative. They would often shave their eyebrows to signify their loss. Diodorus Siculus, described witnessing a Roman accidentally kill an Egyptian cat around 60 BC. An angry mob quickly gathered and mete out the required penalty of death for such an offense.

Many people claim that cats have never really gotten over being worshipped. This perhaps explains the view that “Dogs have masters, while cats have staff.”