Spectacles - "History on Your Face- Common Spectacles Styles before, during and after the Civil War"

[Alan McBrayer]

Hello, Fellow Members,

Enjoy this article about spectacles, with heavy emphasis on the Civil War period. Feel free to print, distribute, or excerpt portions - all we ask is that credit be given to the authors. Hopefully (since I have not posted before), this ambrotype of me taken at 125th Antietam will show up. Comments are encouraged.

"History on Your Face- Common Spectacles Styles before, during and after the Civil War"
by by Alan McBrayer and Thomas Valenza, Copyright 2012

https://archive.org/details/HistoryO...ingAndAfterThe

[Johnschut]

Re: Spectacles - "History on Your Face- Common Spectacles Styles before, during and after the Civil War"

Excellent Read, I am one of those cursed with glasses. I use contacts for events and I want to get into using glasses. However the biggest problem is finding some that fit my wide head. Also finding period correct glasses that aren't broken or unable to be fitted with my prescription. My question to you all is that. Is there a place that makes these that fit the correctness of our period?

[Alan McBrayer]

Re: Spectacles - "History on Your Face- Common Spectacles Styles before, during and after the Civil War"

Hello, John,
There is one company that I know that does a very good job, considering that the owners had to make compromises in using modern (and thus available) materials. This company is www.historiceyewear.com, which is owned by the co-author of this article, Thomas Valenza. For the record, I do not have any business connection at all with Tom's company; also, I am unacquainted with other spectacle reproductions except by photographs, and I do not make endorsements - I can comment on Historic Eyewear products only because I use them. (In photographs, some replicas made by other companies look OK, and some look awful. I refer here to styles only, and only to those characteristics visible in the photographs.) I personally wish to avoid any misperception of a conflict-of interest. In this article, Tom provided information primarily on the optician / vision / eyesight information, and I provided much of the research on style and historical detail. We are both members of the Ocular Heritage Society, comprised of curators, researchers and collectors with serious interest in this subject; I do consider Tom extremely knowledgeable.
The concessions to modernism can be addressed by Tom in much better detail than I can muster, but in short:
1. They are scaled larger (the pair I wear daily is 5 1/4 inches across the front from joint (hinge) tip to joint tip. Over 90% of antique spectacles of the Civil War period measure 4 1/4 inches. 9Remember that styles and construction methods changed quickly, especially in the few years immediately after the War ended.) The glasses (that is, the lenses) are also scaled up to size. (I could not wear an original period pair myself.)
2. The metal frames around the lenses (the eye wire) are made to fit modern aspherical lenses. There is a very slight "bend" because of this; a single antique eye wire, if cut from the frame, would lay flat on a table top; the reproductions would "rock" slightly.
3. Modern lenses are used. The originals were glass biconvex, biconvex, or periscopic in form; modern glass lenses of these types are practically unavailable. Modern lenses and ophthalmic-quality frame metals are used: one resembles coin silver, and one resembles a low-karat gold alloy. I don't know the names of the modern frame metals, but both are extremely durable. I own two pairs (one silver and one gold), and the silver one fitted with progressive bifocal lenses has been the only pair of glasses I've used during the last three years. Since my vision is poor, I have to wear them constantly. The joints are still tight, and the frames still look new.
And I probably left something out. My last reenactment was during 1988, so really have not seen any other repros since then. I hope this helps. Best regards, Alan McBrayer