The only reason I bought this Cabinet Card is because I grew up an hour's drive or so from Altoona, Pennsylvania. I'm also fascinated by how photos travel. I bought it in Los Angeles County, a long, long way from Altoona. I couldn't find much about Howard's Photos except that it was a successful photo studio in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Well, that's what is stamped on the back. Almost certainly Thomas McConnell, a commercial photographer who had a studio on Market Square in 1901. And that's it. A few family details, but beyond that, nothing. Letterkenny is town in County Donegal, Ireland. Republic of, not Northern. It's called the Cathedral Town, home of St. Eunan's Cathedral, all on the River Swilly. What can I say, photographs travel. I bought this CDV in the Los Angeles area, just like the previous post.
A fascinating face, indeed. There's something a bit masculine in her visage. The chin and brow line seem more male to me than female. I know I'm probably wrong, but I think there is a slight chance that this woman is actually a man. I spent decades working in photo labs and one of the things that I learned is that if people can think, they'll do it and take pictures, and a lot of men think about wearing women's clothes. But what about when this picture was taken. I started my lab career after the invention of the Polaroid camera and worked into the digital age granting a certain amount of anonymity to those men wanted to wear a dress. Did professional studio photographers of the nineteenth century have special times to take photos of special customers? Probably.
That's the name that's written on the back of this wallet sized photo. Whenever I have a name on a photo, I do a quick Google search just in case I can find something out there. I found two Ethel Rabel's, one married in 1907, and since it was rare for women to keep their maiden names back then, well, it's possible, but unlikely that the Ethel Raebel from Wisconsin is the woman in this picture. The other Ethel Raebel, from South Dakota was married in 1940. Anyway, the hair and clothes look like they could be from the 1930s, so a possibility.
I hate it when people do this. Someone at some time cut up a cabinet card. Maybe it was so it would fit in a frame, or a wallet. In any case, a bit of history has been vandalized. An unimportant bit of history, perhaps, but a piece of the past, nevertheless. Not all, but many cabinet cards will have a photographer's studio logo on the back. There's just a bit of one left on this picture, but not enough to be worth scanning.
There's no name or date on this portrait, but because of the sepia style, I'm guessing it's from the World War 2 era. Anytime I see a war era, any war, photo of a soldier, I always wonder if they came back. And not just alive. Did they come back physically and emotionally whole?
It doesn't really read on the scan, but there's an embossed credit on the lower right corner. "Portraits by White, CAMP BLANDING, FLORIDA." Stamped on the back, "FROM WHITES PHOTO STUDIO MAIN P.X. CAMP BLANDING, FLA."
There's a fair amount about the history of Camp Blanding online. I'm not going into a great deal of detail, but an overview. Camp Blanding opened in 1939 as the main training center for the Florida National Guard. During World War 2, Camp Blanding was used for the training of nine different infantry divisions, as well as one parachute division. It was also a POW camp for captured German soldiers. For a while, there were so many soldiers stationed at Camp Blanding that it was the fourth-largest city in the state, with over 10,000 buildings and 125 miles of paved roads. I wasn't able to find anything about White's Photo Studio. My best guess is that he was a professional studio photographer in nearby Starke, Florida.
There was a time when many people carried family pictures around in their wallets. The type of photo labs that I used to work in was more about large industrial accounts, but all of them did a certain amount of over-the-counter personal work. Anyway, we had this very old, beat-up wallet-size easel that we used so little, that sometimes it would get shoved away in some corner, and when we had to make a wallet-sized print like this shot of Veda and Campbell, we'd have to go searching for the thing.
Probably, though for all I know they could be any sort of relative or no relation at all.
Another carte de visite from Sweden. I can't imagine that all these photos aren't from the same family. Click on Swedish CDVs to see more. Only one more from this collection is left, so after a few more posts I'll return and finish things up.
Another Swedish portrait from the studios of Arvid Kierling. Click on Swedish CDVs in labels to see more.
I'm beginning to think I should have called this the Arvid Kjerling collection. Anyway, click on Swedish CDVs in labels to see more. The only child's photo in the lot.
I can't imagine that all of these photos from Swedish Photographer Arvid Kjerling aren't related in some way. Some are clearly from the same family, others could be friends. Click on Swedish CDVs in labels to bring up others. Eventually, there willl be seven of them.
Well, the lady on the left is the same woman form the last post, so if nothing else we know that this photo goes with the previous. I was able to find out a bit about the photographer Arvid Kjerling. He was born in 1864 as Karl Teodor Arvid Kjerling. He opened his first photo studio in 1891 in Trollhatton, and moved his business to Karlstad in 1892. He was successful enough to have opened up additional locations before his death in 1917. So, not a long lived person. Click on Swedish CDVs in labels to see more.
I just picked up some CDVs that were taken in Sweden. I'm trying to buy a few more, so even though there almost all certainly from the same family, I'm going to spread them out, one photo at a time. They'll all be identified as Swedish CDVs in labels at the bottom of the post, so they can eventually all be brought up to be viewed together. Since these were purchased in the United States, I think we can say that they were either mailed to a Swedish immigrant family living in the U.S., or were brought here by the actual immigrants themselves.
Of the four cabinet cards I purchased, this is the one that might not show a member of the Rayburn family. So, a bit about photographer on T. H. Eulass, a very small bit. Eulass was, apparently, an itinerant photographer. He was known to work out of Joplin, Missouri, as well as Indiana, and Ohio. And of course, Mason City, Illinois.
It's pretty obvious that the man is Eddie Rayburn from the previous post. I still can't find any info on the Rayburn family, but I was able to dig up a bit of information on photographer G. N. Burleigh. He had a studio in Taylorville, Illinois from 1878 to 1886. Then he was in Jerseyville, Illinois for a year in 1888, and finally ended up in the Illinois state capitol, Springfield from 1891-1900. So, at the very least we can pin down this image to a ten year period. But, what was Eddie, his wife, and by the look of it, a new child doing in the state capitol? Did he move from Mason City? A visit?
I hadn't purchased any cabinet cards for awhile, but I just picked up four of them at a reasonable price. Two of them have names written on the back. The top one, "Eddie Rayburn & Family." Then a bit lower on the back, "Ralph, Floyd." I guess the mother didn't merit a mention. The other photo, "Arthur Rayburn." The other two cabinet cards, which I'll be posting in the next two slots, are almost certainly members of the same family. I wasn't able to find anything on the Rayburn family.
As of right now, I haven't been able to locate any information on T. H. Eulass, the photographer of the top photo, but I was able to find a mention of S.M. Miller, whose mark was found on the back of the second image. Samuel M Miller was born in Illinois, in 1839. He's listed in the 1860 census as a farmer. I couldn't find any indication that he served during the Civil War. In 1863 he married Lucea A. Whitney, the daughter of his boarding house landlord. From 1870 to 1900 he's listed as a photographer, and, over the years, father of four children. By 1910, he's a widower and retired. So far, I haven't been able to find a date of death, but I'll try a few more searches with the next two posts.
