tuesday-johnson:

ca. 1850’s, [daguerreotype portrait of a casually posed gentleman in a white suit], William and Frederick Langenheim

via the Daguerreian Society, Jack Naylor Collection

Dandy after my own heart.

loverofbeauty:

 Japan, circa 1900

(Source: ordinarysorrow)

tuesday-johnson:

ca. 1850, [daguerreotype portrait of a gentleman butterfly collector]

via the George Eastman House Collection, Still Photograph Archive

I went through a phase a few years ago where I wanted to mount butterflies and moths and beetles in cases and things. When I see mid-nineteenth century images like this, it gets me thinking I might try it just to see if I can do it.

tuesday-johnson:

ca. 1850’s, [daguerreotype portrait of two gentlemen; one assertively leaning on the shorter of the two]

via the Daguerreian Society, Matthew R. Isenburg Collection

I want the shorter man’s hat very badly.

(via flashandfootle)

Crappy photo of part of my Russel Wright thrift shop haul today. So totally going toward furnishing the place later this year.

I… want more.

Interior of Charles Oakford & Sons hat store, Continental Hotel, 826-828 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, ca 1865.

Stereoview by W. & F. Langenheim.

This makes me incredibly happy, this view. I’m loving the fact that they hung parasols and umbrellas from the gas-sconces.

Charles Oakford & Sons Model Hat Store, 826 & 828 Chestnut Street, Continental Hotel. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lithograph by Ibbotson & Queen, ca 1870

(Source: lcpdams.librarycompany.org)

Mother and Baby in a hammock, Real Photo Post Card, inscribed “1909” on the verso.

This card from my collection is a major favorite of mine - probably when this image was printed, there was dismay expressed at its blurriness, but were this image in clear focus, I’d not have bought it. I just really love the blur on this one, and the slight lens aberration in the upper center of the image.

Woman with a parrot, Real Photo Post Card, ca 1910.

A favorite from my collection  - slightly cropped because the white border around the edge scanned weirdly.

Parasol, Cornelius St. John, ca 1867

The patent date on the turned oak handle is December 24th, 1867. A couple internet inquiries matched this date to a patent issued to a Cornelius St. John of Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Cornelius St. John has a number of patents on file. Not including the patent that he was issued for the design of this parasol, he was issued a patent for a lamp (Pat. No. 72242, Nov. 19th, 1867), a lamp burner (Pat. No. 75483, March 10th, 1868), and most unusually a device for self-teaching of the Harmonica (Pat No. 176124, 1876). By 1876, St. John had moved from Charlestown and had settled in Boston.

St. John appears to have been involved in some part with the design and sale of oil lamps during the late 1860s, as both patents for the lamp and lamp burner of 1867 and 1868 respectively indicate, as does his patent for the Improvement in Parasols (Pat. No. 72695) which shows that the design of the folded canopy of the parasol originated from the paper oil lamp shades.

As the patent shows, the diminutive sunshade is opened by a metal ring which slides up and spreads the pleated canopy. This same ring holds the canopy closed when not in use. The canopy is a polished cotton material. I was surprised to find that the canopy was lined also with polished cotton. The outside is a brown and steel-blue, but looking in between the tight pleats toward the top of the canopy indicates that these stripes were originally azuline blue, of the extremely vivid, aniline dye variety.