The Old Photo Album

   Pictures of beautiful young ladies gazing into the distance and stalwart, handsome young men, their eyes fixed and a little glazed, are surrounded by trailing vines and morning glories on each page of this old leather photograph album. We used to love looking at the pictures and wondering who they might be: were they relatives or friends? Why did we never know them?

   Daddy didn’t know who they were, even though the album had been passed on to him by his father, Thomas R. Scott, whose name is inscribed in the front. Aunt Jean was able to put a name to one or two of the faces. By studying and comparing faces, we have picked out a few pictures of Grandpa Thomas Scott when he was younger; mostly they are still mysteries.

   I remember the album when it was in near-new condition; but our children have loved the mystery of the unknown faces and have looked and wondered until it’s beginning to fall apart. Was it perhaps given to Thomas Scott and Martha Elliott as a wedding present in 1898? Most of the pictures were taken in Ontario; the clothing indicates the late 1800s. Was it a link to home when the Scotts moved west to Alberta?

   Many of the photos are tintypes — about 2” x 3”, some discolored and dark: pictures of little girls and young ladies in front of a back drop of Niagara Falls, a young man dressed for courting, partially reclining on a stone bench in front of a painted forest, or perhaps sitting at a table with a book or standing with one hand on the shoulder of someone seated in a big chair.

Can you find the picture on this page that isn't a tintype?

   The tintype process was developed in the mid-1850s and was popular clear into the 1930s. A tintype image was made on a sheet of iron metal which had been blackened with paint or enamel. The process was very popular at county fairs or seaside resorts because the print could be made in minutes — a forerunner to Polaroid cameras in a way. It’s interesting to look at the expressions on the faces and wonder how they would look if their heads weren’t being held immovable in a clamp — it was very important the subject stay absolutely still for at least 8 seconds. Sometimes the eyes look a little odd — probably they blinked.

   The rest of the pictures are “Cabinet Cards” — the photo, developed on thin paper, is mounted on a heavy card, often with the name and address of the photographer in beautiful lettering at the bottom. (Why didn’t they letter the name of the subject on it while they were at it?) Cabinet cards became popular in the 1870s and reached a peak in the ‘80s. When the Kodak Box Brownie camera came along in 1900, it became all the rage to take your own snapshots. But, judging by the pictures in this album, our relatives didn’t take up that particular fad — there are no snapshots here.

   Two or three of the pictures were taken in Ottawa; many in St. Catherine’s, Hamilton and Toronto. Some of these areas are closer to the Scotts, some near where the Elliotts lived. One photographer was in Mankato, Minnesota, a thousand miles from any of our (known) relatives.

   A study of men’s and women’s clothing and hairstyles would give us a better idea of the time frame in which the pictures were taken. Mostly, looking at the women’s clothing makes me immeasurably grateful for my blue jeans and t-shirt.

A few of the pictures we were able to identify.

   I just discovered a relatively new website, Photographers of Ontario, that bears investigation. Not only are they trying to identify Ontario photographers from the 1860s through 1950, but people may upload their photos in the hope that someone will look at them and recognize the subjects.  Wouldn’t it be fun to connect with unknown relatives in this way?