Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

[Garrett Silliman]

Hey Folks,

Just saw this on ebay. Nice photo, but I thought the dialog from his "team of experts" was interesting.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Old-RARE-Civil-War-2-Soldiers-Gay-Interest-Tintype-L-K_W0QQitemZ250127044907QQihZ015QQcategoryZ13712QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Enjoy,

[DougCooper]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

I would wager they are brothers. The seller is a typical E-bay huckster.

[stx]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

I read an article in North and South magazine about a photo very similar to this. Most people don't realize how comfortable people were with each other back then. It also said there were only two known cases of homosexuality in the military, and both were in the navy. It disgusts me that this seller is reshaping history just to make a buck.

[Spinster]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

Sigh. And I just amused myself by reading all the Q and A drivel attached to the auction.

My own first thought in looking at this image was the desire that someone familiar with various lodge or fraternal society handshakes give this one a very good look. The pose is just different enough from the usual ' close brothers in arms' to make me think of a fraternal society pose--especially given the expense involved in this image, and the age of younger soldier--just old enough for lodge membership.

[Clsinclair]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

Appears to be a father and his son. I had two sets of GGG Grandfathers who enlisted with their sons, my gg grandfathers.

Regards,
Claude Sinclair

[riptailedroarer]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

from my experiance of ebay, the use of the word "gay" just speads the seach net a bit wider.
nice image, if only I had the spondolicks..........

[garyjd]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

If I had 1$ for every period photo on Ebay showing two men described as "gay interest" I could change my last name to Gates.~Gary

[Hank Trent]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

First of all, no I don't think the pose is evidence that they're gay either, and I'm not convinced the younger was female. I too was thinking about Mrs. Lawson's suggestion of a fraternal handshake.

But this topic comes up regularly, and I always wonder...

If every period photo of men touching is rejected as a sign of homosexuality because touching in photos was common back then, are we concluding 1) that no men were gay in the 1860s? Or 2) that some were but it's impossible to tell which from a photo alone? Or 3) that we'll know it when we see it in a photo, but this isn't it yet? For what it's worth, the second one is my conclusion.

Ironically, in the most famous American photo of a gay couple in the 1860s (see attachment), they aren't touching in the usual photographic way at all.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

If every period photo of men touching is rejected as a sign of homosexuality because touching in photos was common back then, are we concluding 1) that no men were gay in the 1860s? Or 2) that some were but it's impossible to tell which from a photo alone? Or 3) that we'll know it when we see it in a photo, but this isn't it yet? For what it's worth, the second one is my conclusion.
Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

FWIW, I think yours is a very reasonable conclusion. We are quite certain that ame-sex preference is not new. If we were to search for examples of Civil War soldiers who managed to leave behind some unquestionable statement that they were indeed gay, we could inspect their photos to see if there is any definite body language not common to that more physically affectionate era. I don't mean a sensationalist author deciding to "out" someone based on an odd phrase here and there or a broken engagement attended by rumor; I mean a man who said he was attracted to other men. Where the subject didn't declare it himself, I'd be very reluctant to try to discern preference by photograph.

The Ebay picture is too obviously and rigidly posed for that odd hand-touch *not* to have some fraternal meaning, maybe from some lodge now lost to history.

As for Walt Whitman and Company, nothing in their pose is at all suggestive, as we'd expect in an age when it wasn't too wise to be thought homosexual. The fondness with which they look at each other is something else, but if we didn't know the preferences of the men in the photo, it wouldn't jump out at me yelling "Gay!" when it could be saying "dear old comrade, best of friends".

One family we know could have driven us crazy had they been around in Civil War times. They're all so straight it's hilarious, but they're also very affectionate for this day and age. It's not unusual to see the brothers and their dad hug and kiss each other or their adult male friends. We have pictures of them with their arms around one another. (Of course, there's also a nice collection of them doing rabbit ears, goosing each other or threatening to pour ice down somebody's back.) Put them in 1860-something and Ebay would have a great collection of "gay" photos.

[redleggeddevil]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

Studying the 19th century always makes for interesting reading, what with their very different standards of appropriate affection. Theodore Roosevelt and his sisters exchanged letters that were almost disgustingly affectionate. He referred to one sister as "my dearest Pussy", and spoke of how he would hide away with her and "pet my sweet Pussy" all day.

I think that comes into play with the photo under discussion. I find it almost impossible to imagine that a gay pair would immortalize their love in such a fashion. There is a good reason homosexuality was called "the love that dare not speak its name."

Me, I was raised by cold, emotionless, stereotypical WASPs. Friendly contact with my brothers usually involved a closed fist and a friend once said "I would be surprised if your parents even brushed up against one another in a narrow stairwell", so what do I know...

[rick35ovi]

Re: Great Photo, Unfortunate Description

Picked up this image at flea market this Saturday for 2 bucks and thought i would post it here because they are holding hands. They look like brothers to me. Look in coat of the man on the right, Is that a whiskey bottle? The one in the middle seems to have a ribbon pinned to his coat of some sort.