Are these picture taking duds ?

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

HT - Am I reading a suggestion that a known, societally engrained geographical difference, thus stereotype existed in the hues of clothing colors ?

If this is true, my knowledge of the effects of dark colors on heat absorption in the Southland immediately comes to mind. Is the hue difference climate based ? One can easily agree the brim width on the Southrons hat is climate based, no ?

Is the Harpers Cartoon laying out the foundation of the white suited "Colonel Sanders-type" plantation stereotype this early in the progression of American History ?

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

HT - Am I reading a suggestion that a known, societally engrained geographical difference, thus stereotype existed in the hues of clothing colors ?

Yes, though I'd say it's also summer-winter too in the north.

If this is true, my knowledge of the effects of dark colors on heat absorption in the Southland immediately comes to mind. Is the hue difference climate based ? One can easily agree the brim width on the Southrons hat is climate based, no ?

Yep, that's what I always figured.

Is the Harpers Cartoon laying out the foundation of the white suited "Colonel Sanders-type" plantation stereotype this early in the progression of American History ?

Yes. How about a Kentucky major? This photo of Kentucky architect Major Thomas Lewinski (on the left in a white coat and light pants) is probably a little post-war, but not by much, since he was born in 1802.

A little further west and earlier, 1854 Missouri, is Bingham's famous painting including the speaker and at least one listener in white coats.

There were plenty of crowds in the south who wore black or dark broadcloth, too, but I think if one wanted to think of a stereotypical image of a southerner like the cartoon, the linen coat was one attribute, due to the hot weather, along with the broad-brimmed hat.

In the north-south cartoon, one thing I'm curious about is the northerner wearing pants with straps, a style that had disappeared from the dandies at least a decade before, as far as I know. Is that to show he's old-fashioned, or was that considered ultra-formal, or what exactly would that be a sign of?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Elaine Kessinger]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Mr. North is also in what apears to be a tailcoat, also outdated for day-wear by the war years. ... looks a bit like Uncle Sam to me. :-/

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Mr. North is also in what apears to be a tailcoat, also outdated for day-wear by the war years. ... looks a bit like Uncle Sam to me. :-/

Yes, I always thought that Uncle Sam was meant to be a shrewd country fellow all dressed up to go to town in what he thought was his Sunday best, sort of a symbol of America's place in the international community as an upstart rough-and-ready kind of nation. But Mr. North seems to be more city-like and sophisticated than that.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

There were plenty of crowds in the south who wore black or dark broadcloth, too, but I think if one wanted to think of a stereotypical image of a southerner like the cartoon, the linen coat was one attribute, due to the hot weather, along with the broad-brimmed hat.
Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

HT - As always, you present a probable, historical representation with this, but my Support-Fu is strong Master Trentson......and I put forth: Chattanooga, 1864 (by pic description). There are men in this image seemingly in shirt sleeves, the chimney outlets do not reveal any degree of a heat fire and the men perched in the open doorways indicate no premium being placed on structural heat retention, especially in light of the set up and processing time of period photographic media.....all said to demonstrate a high probably this is not dead of winter.

By my eye, in middle Tennessee, circa 1864 the dark hued mens outer garments seem to dominate with the exception of three or so gents... in an agreeably less than stellar resolution image. I am also not seeing the common, distinctive cut and contrasting hue of the National soldier's fatigue uniform..but it is a indeed a wicked lousy shot.

If any CIA types can work thier magic on this one.......wow.




If we are playing a round of what we think coulda, woulda, mighta happened based on this image..... I'm gwine to toss out that perhaps the white-suited set depicted bv Harper's and Bingham's 1854 Stump Speech are the elite, politi-planter class, who absent the typical labor of their own hand (read: chattel slaves) required for the necessities of the day (i.e..equine labor vs carriage travel, sustenance labor, fuel labor..etc) were able to pull off the white suits...as day wear.

and

the every day common workin stiff chose darker garments for the aforementioned garment longevity and utilitarian purposes, that history later supports.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida
Banned and in Solitary Confinement but Still Diggin' the History

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

. Is that just me or is Lewis Payne wearing broadfall fronted trousers. I know that it is seen in some Navy uniforms, but wasn't that for the most part out of style for civilian where by then, or is that a matter of Payne being among a lower socio-economic class and wearing what he could afford to get?

I have read a fair bit about Lewis Powell a/k/a Lewis Paine a/k/a Lewis Payne....his homestead having been in Live Oak, Florida.

Perhaps he was in naval garments due to his imprisonment and subsequent execution at the Washington Navy Yard. Broadfall trousers might come in handy when according to the The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (p. 245), speaking of Powell during his pre-sentence imprisonment and subsequent adjudications "he didn't have a bowel movement for 35 straight days."

Powell's burial spot in Washington's Holmead Cemetery was unearthed in the 1870s and his skull, which was found in storage at the Smithsonian was positively identified by the FBI and returned for interment at his mother's Geneva, Florida gravesite in 1994.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

I asked this just before a forum crash some time back, but here goes again: As I understand it, old movies are colorized by taking a couple of known values from the picture (say, a red dress that has been preserved, or a blue uniform). Has any effort been made to develop a similar tool for still photographs? I recall someone saying that light yellow, in particular, gives odd results in wet-plate photography. I'm not suggesting we colorize history, but that it could be a research tool. The man in front of Dunlap and Bowdre looks to be wearing a light-colored linen coat, but it would be interesting to see whether any of those other garments are really as dark as they look.

Other things I noticed:
The trees on the ridge line are in leaf, so it's spring or summer, and by the density of leaves I'd say summer.
Note the number of light-colored, but not white, shirts. Also note the white-jacketed man in front of Dunlap and Bowdre, who appears to be wearing a white jacket and black or dark shirt. Either that, or he has on a dark vest and a really long, full beard.
Wonder what color the stuff hanging in front of Scott, Keen and Co. is and whether those are coats?
Beards seem to be the order of the day. It's hard to see hairstyles.
There's not a woman in sight not any goods displayed that would be for women. At the moment, this is a man's town. That might account for some of the shirt sleeves. Has there been any study of when it became acceptable for men working in a grocery, or other place where women might venture, to work in shirt sleeves and a vest? Hospital pictures sometimes show nuses and a man or two thus dressed, but the exigencies of the moment would seem to require more laxity.
Two men in front of the Etowah Restaurant have what seem to be matching mid-toned jackets of some lightweight material. One is wearing his shoved back because he has his hands in his pockets. The other has his slung over his shoulder. It almost looks as if he's rolled it.

As a very broad, general observation, people who worked outdoors a lot did tend to use broad-brimmed hats to protect the back of the nack, while those engaged in manual labor or service jobs often wore caps. An observation of northern city men's hats, especially those of wealthy types, shows a general trend to a narrow brim all round--in other words, enough to show it wasn't a cap, but not enough to imply the gentleman might be out in the sun for any length of time. Even summer straw hats usually had a smaller brim than was practical for anything but boating (since the narrower brim on any sailor's hat does serve a purpose by making the hat less liable to blow off.)

In the North, as most of you know, white outer clothing came to symbolize summer, putting away business affairs to rest on the cleanest available mountaintop or seashore, and a general freedom from care. It was also a status symbol. since maintaining white or light-colored clothes implies more work than a quick brush-down of a sensible brown or gray garment. The idea of separate wardrobes for leisure pursuits took hold even more in the postwar period, of course, but the seeds were there as boating, tennis and golf gained popularity among the rich. By contrast, in the South, white reflected light and kept people cool, and labor to maintain the clothing was an antebellum given.

A Southern planter, no matter how wealthy, might be out on horseback a good bit of the day and would roast himself pretty thoroughly without sun protection. The fields, after all, were his place of business as surely as a Northern businessman belonged in his office most of the day. This might account for some of the Northern amusement at planter wear, however subconscious it may have been: if he's so rich, why is he dressed like a farmer, and if he's not lounging around all day, why is he wearing white clothes? That's not the worst of our mutual misunderstandings, of course, but it's certainly among them.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

I asked this just before a forum crash some time back, but here goes again: As I understand it, old movies are colorized by taking a couple of known values from the picture (say, a red dress that has been preserved, or a blue uniform). Has any effort been made to develop a similar tool for still photographs?

Long story short, yes, but it's impossible to tell what actual color something is/was, because a red fabric and a dark brown fabric, for example, might reflect the exact same amount of light. When the amount of light only is recorded, without regard to the hue, there would be no way to tell to color.

The longer version:

The "zone system" for controlling black and white photography, popular in the early 20th century, is a good way of understanding it. By adjusting the exposure, a photographer can make any part of an image any shade of gray he chooses, and by adjusting the contrast, he can choose what will be pure black and white.

In other words, a portrait photographer could do any of the following things with a caucasian face and a dark green dress, just by adjusting the exposure and the contrast:

pale gray face, dark gray dress
pale gray face, black dress
dark gray face, darker gray dress
dark gray face, black dress
almost white face, black dress
almost white face, light gray dress
etc.

The only thing he couldn't do, except with filters or other manipulation, is make the dark green dress lighter than the face.

This kind of control was deliberately done in the heyday of black and white photography in the 20th century, but still occurs accidentally, more or less, in any black and white photograph, since every photograph has some specific exposure and level of contrast. As you can see, there would be no way to tell the actual color of the face or dress, only the relative darkness or lightness.

At most, one could say that the early blue-sensitive emulsion might make blues lighter and yellows/reds relatively darker than a pan-chromatic film, but it still wouldn't indicate what was blue or yellow.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Long story short, yes, but it's impossible to tell what actual color something is/was, because a red fabric and a dark brown fabric, for example, might reflect the exact same amount of light. When the amount of light only is recorded, without regard to the hue, there would be no way to tell to color.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

Are not contrast and exposure applied uniformly across a period image ? Hue is a product of a particular colors realtive reflectitve ability (impacted by a materials surface finish to a degree) in a period or B/W "unpushed" or altered image.

In this image, the constant is the amount of available, reflected light e.g. ...white buildings and shirts..... are not going to reproduce as a light colored highly refractive state and a white, yellow, tan light gray jacket show up as dark in the same image.

Veering towards the edge of my lane....Mr. Todd Harrington ?

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Are not contrast and exposure applied uniformly across a period image ? Hue is a product of a particular colors realtive refractive ability (impacted by a materials surface finish to a degree) in a period or B/W "unpushed" or altered image.

In this image, the constant is the amount of available, refracted light e.g. ...white buildings and shirts..... are not going to reproduce as a light colored highly refractive state and a white, yellow, tan light gray jacket show up as dark in the same image.

Yes, relative values will be constant if they're in the same lighting, so one can certainly tell whether an object is lighter or darker (allowing for the fact that blue-sensitive emulsion won't "see" things exactly like the human eye). But there's no way to tell if a light-colored item is pale green, pale yellow or pale blue, for example, and I thought that's what Beck Morgan was talking about--a way to figure out which colors were which, and not just what was lighter or darker, from black and white images.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

As a very broad, general observation, people who worked outdoors a lot did tend to use broad-brimmed hats to protect the back of the nack, while those engaged in manual labor or service jobs often wore caps. An observation of northern city men's hats, especially those of wealthy types, shows a general trend to a narrow brim all round--in other words, enough to show it wasn't a cap, but not enough to imply the gentleman might be out in the sun for any length of time. Even summer straw hats usually had a smaller brim than was practical for anything but boating (since the narrower brim on any sailor's hat does serve a purpose by making the hat less liable to blow off.)

Broad-brimmed hats certainly are more practical for working out doors than caps or short brimmed hats, but the idea that short-brimmed hats were more popular in the North or that they were worn by wealthier men not generally engaged in manual labor is quite a stretch. Any photographic survey will reveal a trend toward short-brimmed short-crowned hats in the 1860s among all classes of men. High-crowned wide brimmed hats were the fashion of the 1850s. There are also many original wide-brimmed straw hats in existence and photographs of wide-brimmed straw hats are also abundant, particularly from the 1850s.

In the North, as most of you know, white outer clothing came to symbolize summer, putting away business affairs to rest on the cleanest available mountaintop or seashore, and a general freedom from care. It was also a status symbol. since maintaining white or light-colored clothes implies more work than a quick brush-down of a sensible brown or gray garment. The idea of separate wardrobes for leisure pursuits took hold even more in the postwar period, of course, but the seeds were there as boating, tennis and golf gained popularity among the rich. By contrast, in the South, white reflected light and kept people cool, and labor to maintain the clothing was an antebellum given.

New York, July 27
.... The town is completely running over with country people. In the stages, cars, and on the fashionable sidewalk of Broadway, one encounters nothing but black hats, satin vests, linen overcoats and sunburnt [sic] faces--the four characteristics which mark people from the rural districts. All the hotels are full, and every place of amusement is crammed nightly. It reminds me of Anniversary Week, without the white cravats, black thread gloves and cotton umbrellas. The principal object of this inroad from the interior is to see the Great Eastern which, for several days, has been as thickly crowded with inquisitive people as a sugar hogshead with flies. . . NOX. --CHARLESTON MERCURY, July 30, 1860, p. 1, c. 4

Personally, if the whole concept of "maintaining white clothing was so much work and therefore a status symbol," and the working man wore dark clothing to hide the dirt, then why were white linen or cotton aprons so common for working men, seems like they'd get dirty real quick? Why also did the army issue off-white stable frocks to keep their dark blue uniforms clean, seems like the dark blue would hide dirt and stains better? And why will you see far more working men wearing white shirts and collars than plaids or other types of materials? I think the issue has a lot to do with self respect, just because you were poor didn't mean you couldn't be clean.

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Yes, relative values will be constant if they're in the same lighting, so one can certainly tell whether an object is lighter or darker (allowing for the fact that blue-sensitive emulsion won't "see" things exactly like the human eye). But there's no way to tell if a light-colored item is pale green, pale yellow or pale blue, for example, and I thought that's what Beck Morgan was talking about--a way to figure out which colors were which, and not just what was lighter or darker, from black and white images.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

Amended - reflective not refractive ..I used the wrong science term

My only point was if an image had the available light to represent a known white object as a light hue then a yellow object is not going to reproduce as a black / super dark hue in the same image, as yellow and white are towards the lighter end of the spectrum.

I have read on fora and such that the yellow trim on a Mtd Service Jacket reproduces as a dark, "very un-yellow to the minds eye" color in period images. It would if all the lighter, more reflective tones in the image where captured and reproduced based on the available light as darker hues. The suggestion otherwise is that there is something inherent to the chemical process or the capture of light in period photography media that changes how the reflective properties of certain colors are reproduced making them appear black or dark, which in the color world (which is nothing more that refration of light in varying wave lengths) black represents the complete absence of color and offers lower reflective, but higher absorptive properties.


CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Personally, if the whole concept of "maintaining white clothing was so much work and therefore a status symbol," and the working man wore dark clothing to hide the dirt, then why were white linen or cotton aprons so common for working men, seems like they'd get dirty real quick?

My common sense (which is little) based the practical evolution of these matters in postwar chronology (JLo is gwine to light my hair on fire) suggests promotion of a sense of cleanliness, utilitarian and perhaps a disposable purpose / aspect in shop keepers, medical and food preparation industry but I am not certain that other trades associated with apron use...i.e. craftsmen, blacksmiths, farriers exclusively used lighter, less durable, outer protective wear in those environs... this is based on having been around those trades in the interpretive envrionment at such places as Westville.

Why also did the army issue off-white stable frocks to keep their dark blue uniforms clean, seems like the dark blue would hide dirt and stains better?

Hmmmm.....army issue off white stable frocks....see my post regarding the frocks in the Scouts and Spies image (post # 29 in this thread)..got a pic of an army issue off white stable frock ?

And why will you see far more working men wearing white shirts and collars than plaids or other types of materials? I think the issue has a lot to do with self respect, just because you were poor didn't mean you couldn't be clean.

Am I reading the suggestion that the poor wore white / light colors out of a sense of self-respect to demonstrate cleanliness ? Never thought of it in those terms

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[CJSchumacher]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Ian, thanks for all of the much appreciated thoughts and research. Here is the photo requested:

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Doesnt seem to be the style frock in the Spies and Scouts photo.....

Thanks for posting it

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida