Sentimental Sunday - Women with Hats - Big Hats in Clay Center, Kansas

This real photo postcard shows four, very stylish ladies from Clay Center, Kansas wearing extremely large hats and is dated on the back April 4, 1912.  Evidently it was cold in Kansas that April as each of these women is dressed for cold weather, perhaps an outing or for travel.  Besides their hats, they are wearing floor-length overcoats, carrying purses and gloves.  It is a wonderful photo of early 1900's fashions and appears to have been taken in a studio.

On the back someone has very nicely identified three of the women as Ellin Wickstion, Ida Ericson and Abbie Swenson.  Unfortunately, they did not note which name went with which woman.  To make matters worse the penner has placed an ink star on the front and noted on the back, "I starred beneath Mom."  We can assume one of those names belongs to "Mom," but that is still no help.  These names all appear to be of Swedish origin and I found the last woman, Abbie Swenson, in the 1910 Clay County, KS census on Ancestry.com.  She was born in 1889 in Kansas which would make her about 23 years old in this photograph, perhaps the one in the back left.

Those Places Thursday - Traveling Railroad Photo Cars

This wonderful cabinet card photo of four young women brought to my attention something I had never heard of before - traveling railroad photo cars. According to Robert O. Brown, the Hutchings Railroad Photo Car was designed to be a traveling studio. The train car would consist of studio, dark room and sleeping rooms for the photographer and assistant. It appears Hutchings, who was headquartered in Kansas, traveled in his railroad car up and down the Kansas railroads and into Nebraska. To see what a traveling photo car may have looked like check out this webpage. In Brown's 2002 book, "Collectors Guide to 19th Century U.S. Traveling Photographers" he believes that Hutchings most likely worked from 1884 - 1889. If you do a web search you will find many photos posted with his photographer's mark and most look to be from this time period.

I would date this particular photograph more at the end of that time frame, about 1889.  The uneven scalloped card edges were rarely seen before that time on cabinet cards.  The girls' clothing fits the time period as do their hairstyles.  The lace collars three of them are wearing are so intricate and beautiful.  I also love the girl with the eyeglasses!  Alas, our subjects are once again unidentified.

Mystery Monday - Unknown Trio Poses with Chihuahua in Pittsburg, KS

Who are these three people posing for this Cabinet Card with the little black Chihuahua sitting on a stool in Pittsburg, Kansas? This picture is not of the greatest quality, it is blurred, it has been roughly handled over the years with many scratches, scuff marks and dirt.  The back is the same color as the front with something very lightly written in pencil but some one has scratched it out also with pencil.  There are water stains on the backside as well.  The pose of this trio is quite stiff and it is interesting to me that the men in the picture are so blurred while the little dog is quite clear.

The photographer is E. W. Smith who I found in three Kansas State Censuses, 1895, 1905 and 1915.  In the 1895 census he was age 42, born in Indiana, married to Elizabeth age 32, two daughters Roxie age 11 and Viola age 6.  None of these censuses listed an occupation.  I also found an 1890 Pittsburgh, Kansas City Directory where he is listed near the bottom of the page under "Masonic."  I found another cabinet card photograph taken by him on the Pittsburg State University site of the wedding of Anna Matilda Lahmann and Henry Cordes in 1887.

Due to the woman's clothing and the embossed text and artwork this photograph was probably taken around the very late 1890's or early 1900's.