Diane Arbus and Spooky Twins

This is one of my favorite posts about vintage photographs in my collection.  It was originally posted  six years ago.

 

Long before she killed herself in 1971 at the age of 48, (pills, slashed wrists, found in the bathtub two days later), the photographer Diane Arbus told a friend she was afraid that she would be remembered simply as “the photographer of freaks.”

Today that’s exactly how she is remembered for her searing, macabre photographs of “deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal,” as one biographer described her favorite subjects.

But one of her most famous photographs (on the left above) is not of circus freaks or mentally challenged people, but of identical twin girls taken in Roselle, N.J. in 1967.

This eerie photograph of young sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade has been copied and echoed many times—including in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘”The Shining” with its twin girl ghosts. In fact there’s a TV commercial on right now (for kitchen appliances) with a pair of similar sinister girls.

A print of Arbus’s twins was sold at auction for $478,000 in 2004 and a couple of months ago I saw another one at the AIPAD photography show in New York that was priced at around $275,000 for a tiny print with Arbus’s notes on the back.

Let’s face it, there’s something intrinsically spooky about twins—especially identical twins—because it’s shocking to see the same individual, the same face, doubled and standing side by side. Maybe that’s why I (and many other collectors) love to find vintage photographic images of twins. They always seem to look like something out of Stephen King.

The 1/6 plate daguerreotype, #1, that I have above next to the Arbus twins, is my favorite dag ever. In my opinion it’s just as good – if not better -- than the Arbus image. The two little girls, who were photographed in the 1840’s or 1850’s, look amazingly like the twins from New Jersey. Compare the faces of the girls on the left in each photo.

The stern young ladies in image #1 are each holding a daguerreotype case inlaid with mother of pearl, and they wear identical gold-tinted pendents and dresses.

(In vintage photos it’s very common for siblings—not just twins -- to be dressed alike, because Mom would buy a long length of fabric and then the dressmaker would come around to stitch up clothing for all the kids from the same bolt of cloth.)

These are some of my prize twin images—all of them spooky. In the early days of photography, people were not only intimidated by this modern invention, they were warned not to move—certainly not to smile—because it would blur the image. Children were often strapped into a chair with their heads in a brace. No wonder they often look terrified!

Images 1 , 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all daguerreotypes—the very earliest photographic process. Don’t you love the dour sisters in the checkerboard dresses in #3 (not a flattering pattern!) and next to them the long-faced girls in plaid. The sisters in image 5 I suspect, because of their somber clothing and jewelry, may be in mourning.

The girls holding books in image 6 are not identical, but the men in image 7 are mirror images of each other. I love how their top-knots curl in opposite directions. (Six and 7 are ambrotypes—negative images on glass—popular from 1854 to 1865.) People were always worried about how to pose their hands in these early days, and the photographer would arrange hands awkwardly like the ones you see here.

The two women in image 9 may not be twins, or even sisters, but I cherish them because they are feminists from the mid-1800’s! Written in the case behind their daguerreotype is this: “Mary, you and my self are still left single/ while others are double and full of trouble. Your KPL”

 

Photos 11 to 14 are tintypes, which became popular during the Civil War and continued into the 1900’s. The girls in 11 and the boys in 12 have high button shoes, and the ladies in #14, in ruffled skirts, are posed in a photographer’s studio. Check out the bathing beauties in #13, on a holiday at the seashore (but posed in front of a painted canvas background.)

The toddlers in # 15 are boy/girl twins. (Boys wore dresses until after age 5.) Their mother has written on the back of the cabinet card “Twins. Left, Louise Bertha Inez Forte. Right Louis Bertrand Forte. Born June 13th, 1893 at 2 p.m. in West Newton. Louis was born 5 minutes after Louise.”

An equally helpful relative noted the names of the young flappers in image #16, who look very chic in their cloche hats, as “Alice Antoinette Howland and Harriet Alma Howland, 1926.” Their relaxed pose in their fur-collared coats makes for a beautiful portrait, but none of the twins can compare to my ghostly, sour-faced girls from 170 years ago in image #1.

Diane Arbus and Spooky Twins

Inspired by a current exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum called "Perfectly Strange", which features Diane Arbus's famous photograph of "Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ 1967", I am re-posting an essay I wrote four years ago which has become one of the most popular on "A Rolling Crone".  (A list of other essays about historic photos is at right.)  It will be one of the chapters in my forthcoming book  about antique photographs, tentatively titled "Unlocking the Secrets of Our Earliest Photographs." 

Long before she killed herself in 1971 at the age of 48, (pills, slashed wrists, found in the bathtub two days later), the photographer Diane Arbus told a friend she was afraid that she would be remembered simply as “the photographer of freaks.”

Today that’s exactly how she is remembered for her searing, macabre photographs of “deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal,” as one biographer described her favorite subjects.

But one of her most famous photographs (on the left above) is not of circus freaks or mentally challenged people, but of identical twin girls taken in Roselle, N.J. in 1967.

This eerie photograph of young sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade has been copied and echoed many times—including in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘”The Shining” with its twin girl ghosts. In fact there’s a TV commercial on right now (for kitchen appliances) with a pair of similar sinister girls.

A print of Arbus’s twins was sold at auction for $478,000 in 2004 and a couple of months ago I saw another one at the AIPAD photography show in New York that was priced at around $275,000 for a tiny print with Arbus’s notes on the back.

Let’s face it, there’s something intrinsically spooky about twins—especially identical twins—because it’s shocking to see the same individual, the same face, doubled and standing side by side. Maybe that’s why I (and many other collectors) love to find vintage photographic images of twins. They always seem to look like something out of Stephen King.

The 1/6 plate daguerreotype, #1, that I have above next to the Arbus twins, is my favorite dag ever. In my opinion it’s just as good – if not better -- than the Arbus image. The two little girls, who were photographed in the 1840’s or 1850’s, look amazingly like the twins from New Jersey. Compare the faces of the girls on the left in each photo.

The stern young ladies in image #1 are each holding a daguerreotype case inlaid with mother of pearl, and they wear identical gold-tinted pendents and dresses.

(In vintage photos it’s very common for siblings—not just twins -- to be dressed alike, because Mom would buy a long length of fabric and then the dressmaker would come around to stitch up clothing for all the kids from the same bolt of cloth.)

These are some of my prize twin images—all of them spooky. In the early days of photography, people were not only intimidated by this modern invention, they were warned not to move—certainly not to smile—because it would blur the image. Children were often strapped into a chair with their heads in a brace. No wonder they often look terrified!

(Click on the photos to make them bigger.)


Images 1 , 2, 3, 4 and 5 above are all daguerreotypes—the very earliest photographic process. Don’t you love the dour sisters in the checkerboard dresses in #3 (not a flattering pattern!) and next to them the long-faced girls in plaid. The sisters in image 5 I suspect, because of their somber clothing and jewelry, may be in mourning.


The girls holding books in image 6 are not identical, but the men in image 7 are mirror images of each other. I love how their top-knots curl in opposite directions. (Six and 7 are ambrotypes—negative images on glass—popular from 1854 to 1865.) People were always worried about how to pose their hands in these early days, and the photographer would arrange hands awkwardly like the ones you see here.


The two women in image 9 may not be twins, or even sisters, but I cherish them because they are feminists from the mid-1800’s! Written in the case behind their daguerreotype is this: “Mary, you and my self are still left single/ while others are double and full of trouble. Your KPL”

Photos 11 to 14 are tintypes, which became popular during the Civil War and continued into the 1900’s. The girls in 11 and the boys in 12 have high button shoes, and the ladies in #14, in ruffled skirts, are posed in a photographer’s studio. Check out the bathing beauties in #13, on a holiday at the seashore (but posed in front of a painted canvas background.)


The toddlers in # 15 are boy/girl twins. (Boys wore dresses until after age 5.) Their mother has written on the back of the cabinet card “Twins. Left, Louise Bertha Inez Forte. Right Louis Bertrand Forte. Born June 13th, 1893 at 2 p.m. in West Newton. Louis was born 5 minutes after Louise.”

An equally helpful relative noted the names of the young flappers in image #16, who look very chic in their cloche hats, as “Alice Antoinette Howland and Harriet Alma Howland, 1926.” Their relaxed pose in their fur-collared coats makes for a beautiful portrait, but none of the twins can compare to my ghostly, sour-faced girls from 170 years ago in image #1.

Rolling Crone and Elizabeth Keckley together in The New York Times On Line

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The three verified images of Elizabeth Keckley

           Last Thursday I got on a plane for Miami, just missing the blizzard called Nemo.  This long-planned trip brought me to South Beach to help babysit granddaughter Amalia while daughter Eleni was traveling to South Carolina to promote her newest book “Other Waters.”

           On the same day I left Boston, Feb. 7,  the New York Times on-line published an article I wrote for them about Elizabeth Keckley, the mulatto former slave who became  the dressmaker and confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln.  Here’s where you can see it:

   http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/mrs-keckley-has-met-with-great-success/

          The article, “Mrs. Keckley has Met with Great Success”, appeared in a section of The Times’ “Opinionator” section called “Disunion” which “follows the Civil War as it unfolded.”  Appearing in this section inevitably brings a crowd of readers and many comments, some of them from experts in every detail of the Civil War (which I am not!)

          I first discovered Elizabeth Keckley – an extraordinary woman who bought freedom from slavery for herself and her son with her skills at sewing—when, in 2007, I bought on E-Bay a cased ambrotype portrait of a mixed-race woman. Pinned to the velvet lining was a scrap of paper with the words “Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave”.  Researching her story was a revelation to me—of what a woman born into slavery managed to achieve in the nineteenth century. I posted my first story about her in “A Rolling Crone on Sept 27, 2009.

 http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-black-woman-in-white-house.html

          A month later, in Oct. 23, 2009, I wrote a second post on Keckley, comparing the only three known images of her to the woman in the ambrotype I had bought.  Here’s the post: 

http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2009/10/story-behind-photo-elizabeth-keckley.html

         In the end I realized sadly that my image of “Elizabeth Keckley” was not authentic—there was too much disparity between the verified images of Keckley and the one I bought.  But I didn’t mind that much, because buying the image had introduced me to such a fascinating person.

          I read two books about Keckley’s life and I tried unsuccessfully to interest The New York Times in publishing  an article about Keckley, but did not succeed.  Then, a few months ago, the film “Lincoln” appeared and snapped up a lot of nominations for the Oscars.  Evidently many who saw the film were intrigued by the character of Elizabeth Keckley,  (portrayed by actress Gloria Reuben)  in a relatively minor role, and they wanted to learn more about her. 

           I knew this was true because the number of hits on my old posts about Keckley suddenly soared as people began Googling her.  I tried again to interest The Times in a piece about her and last Thursday it appeared in “Disunion.” (And yesterday’s Sunday Times Book Review contained a full-page ad for the new novel “Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker” by Jennifer Chiaverini, which is already number 11 on the Best Seller list.)

           So far my essay in “Disunion” has received 34 comments—some critical, some favorable.  The most common complaints claim that it’s inaccurate to say that Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized by her son Robert when she  “descended into total madness”.   He did commit her to an institution for fear that she would harm herself, but evidently she was not completely insane and was later released.

 

         Another criticism that frequently pops up when I write about racial issues is that it’s wrong to call mulattoes like Elizabeth Keckley or apparently-white former slaves like her son George, “African American” or  “black.”  I completely understand and agree with this point, but as one Stephen D. Calhoun wrote after a comment from the always-irate A. Powell on my “Disunion” piece:  

 

          In 1858 the rules of the laws of Maryland classified all mulattoes as negroes. Within the rules and laws of that era, the classification is not anachronistic. It is accurate.

 

         The comments I liked best were, of course, the many positive ones, especially this one from Ole Holsti in Salt Lake city, UT:

         This entire series is wonderful, and this is one of the best. Many thanks!

 

          Eventually, I’m told, The Times will publish a book including selected essays from the “Disunion” series, and I’m hoping that my piece on Elizabeth Keckley might be included.  Meanwhile, I’m optimistic enough to hope that in future I can interest The Times’ editors in some other essays on my special area of interest:  how the Abolitionists (as well as pro-slavery advocates) used the fairly new “science” of photography to create propaganda to promote their views.  (Some essays I've already written on that subject for "A Rolling Crone" are listed at right under the heading "The Story Behind the Photograph".)

The Mom with Messy Hair (The Story Behind the Photo)

I love it when one of the antique photographs in my collection poses a mystery that sets me off on research in an effort to solve it.  Often the solution remains frustratingly elusive, as in “Is This a Lost Portrait of Lord Byron?” which has brought me fascinating e-mails from Byron experts around the world, but has never identified the painting of Byron that was photographed in that early ambrotype. I’m still convinced that my ambro records an important unknown oil painting of Byron that  will show up some day in a musty English stately home.

The photograph at the top, of a charming family with five children, has had me puzzled for many years.  I call it “Mom with Messy Hair.”  It’s a large (half plate) ambrotype, which is the photographic process that emerged during the 1850’s, after the daguerreotype.  An ambrotype is a negative image on the back of a glass plate, which becomes a positive image when you put a dark background behind it.

I was fascinated by this very attractive family because, in an era when women never let their hair down in public, but always had it severely pulled back and up, how can we explain this mother’s hairdo which seems to have been “combed” with an egg beater? (To see examples of 19th century women's severe hair styles, check out my post “Diane Arbus and Spooky Twins”). 

With my usual penchant for tragedy and drama, I imagined that perhaps this woman was an invalid—at death’s door—and the photographer had been called in to record her image with her family before she passed away.  But this mom looks perfectly happy and well, except for what’s on top of her head.

There was also the question of the towel or piece of cloth that has fallen on the floor at her feet. Is there a towel on the floor because this is a sickroom?  I once developed a theory, because so many people in early daquerreotypes and ambrotypes were clutching a white handkerchief, that these were symbols of mourning and loss, like the black arm bands and woven hair bracelets often worn  in the 1800's.

Turns out I was completely off base with that theory.  More savvy collectors told me that those white cloths and handkerchiefs were in the photo to help the photographer focus, so that he wouldn’t get solarization—a white glare or aura around something like a white shirt front that often mars early photos, due to the bright sunlight’s reflection. (Remember there was no electricity back then, so the photographer could only work on sunny days.)

After years of puzzling about the woman’s hair, I recently posed my question to a fellow collector and member of the Daguerreian Society, Joan Severa, who is the ultimate expert on the history of fashion.  She can look at the garments, collars and sleeves, shoes and hairstyles, brooches and ruffles, and tell you exactly when an antique photograph was made and the social class of the people in the photo.

Joan Severa has written a number of books on the subject, including “Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840 – 1900” and “My Image Taken”. Her books are invaluable tools for any historian or collector.

Here’s what I wrote to Joan about the “Mom with Messy Hair”.

 “What fascinates me, of course, is the attractive mother of five children, sitting with her family, with completely messed-up hair.  Surely that hair was never in fashion?  Because she also seems to be without the usual tight boned corset  I thought that maybe she is ill and in the equivalent of a dressing gown?  Yet she looks quite serene and well in the photograph”.

And here’s what Joan Severa replied. As usual, she knocked me out with the detail and depth of her knowledge of the fashions of the period:

First, let me tell you that the mommie in your first image does not have “messy hair!  Her locks are combed down and full over her ears very smoothly, then swept up in back into a crown of twists or braids, which she has then crowned with an ultra-fashionable “coiffure”, or headdress, of flower buds and ribbon, which hangs down both sides. The image dates to the first couple years of the ‘50s, when wide whitework collars were the latest word, skirts were very full and supported by 8 or 9 petticoats, and the corset was still the bust-crushing long one of the late ‘40s.  She is, too, wearing a corset. 

 Her gown is of a light silk, puffed in the bodice and with open sleeves and fancy “engageantes” or undersleeves of sheer white frills.  It is a fancy “at home” dress, in which she would have received callers.  The oldest girl is wearing the long corset too, as witness the pointed waistline, and she and the next-oldest wear “bretelles”, tapered frills like those of a fancy apron, from shoulders to a point at the waist.

So there’s the end to the mystery.  My heart-breaking scenario of an ill or dying mother was complete fantasy, but I don’t mind.  I love learning about things like “engageantes” and “bretelles.”  And I’m glad to know that the mom with the messy hair was in perfect health and rocking a headdress of flower buds and ribbon.

But I still think, if I had turned up with a headdress like the nineteenth century mom above, no matter how fashionable, my own mother would be quick to say, “You’re not going out of the house with your hair looking like that!”

American Gothic-- Favorite Photos Friday

This painting by America Artist Grant Wood is one of the ten most famous paintings in the world and one of the most parodied (along with “The Scream”). Wood painted it in 1930.  First he came upon the Gothic Revival-style house in  Eldon, Iowa, then he used his own sister Nan and his dentist  as models for the couple painted in the foreground.  (They never actually stood in front of the house. He painted the elements separately.)

Wood entered the painting in a competition sponsored by the Art Institute of Chicago and though the judges first called it  “comic valentine”, a museum patron (according to Wikipedia) convinced them to award the painting the first prize of $300 and to buy it for the Museum.

When the instant fame of the painting reached Iowa, the natives of the state were outraged at being portrayed as “pinched, grim-faced puritanical Bible thumpers”, but by the time the Depression hit the country, people began to see the painting as a depiction of the steadfast American spirit.. 

The artist’s sister, Nan, was upset at being pictured as the wife of a man twice her age (the dentist who served as the model for the pitchfork-toting farmer), so she and Grant Wood told people this was meant to be a picture of a farmer and his spinster daughter. But everyone who sees the painting sees it as a married couple—pinched and solemn, hardworking and humorless, who have undoubtedly been married for so long they’ve started to look alike.

In my collection of antique photos I have two couples I’d like to nominate as stand-ins for the American Gothic couple—or, since they pre-date the Grant Wood painting by at least 30 years if not more, let’s call them the original  American Gothic.

This pair appeared together in a leather photo case I bought. The images are so clean and vivid that I nearly jumped when I opened the case to find these two sixth- plate ambrotypes on ruby glass.  For some reason, I’m convinced this is the only portrait this couple ever had taken of themselves.  They look like a no-nonsense pair who would not waste money on frivolity like photographs.

The thing that fascinates me about this pair is the woman’s hair.  (And her square granny glasses.)  I’m pretty sure her real hair color would be white, not black, but she doesn’t look like someone who would color her hair (which was considered shocking and almost never done in the 19^th century.)  Maybe she’s wearing a wig?  Also, those crazy banana curls may be made of chenille—I believe I read something about that being a fad back in the 19^th century.

This other pair hang in my bedroom, and every time I look at them I smile.  (I’m sorry I couldn’t get a clearer photo of the man but the light and reflections totally foiled me on the day I snapped the photo.)

These two are examples of painted tintypes, a format that combines two of my great loves—photography and folk art.  Painted tintypes like these usually began with a full plate (about 8 by ten inches) tintype photograph.  Then someone—either the photographer’s staff or an artistic housewife—would paint over the image, sometimes to the point that you could no longer tell it’s a photograph.  Many hilariously non-realistic portraits were created this way.

But just painting over the photograph wasn’t enough.  The mat and frame of the painting were also hand-made and painted to embellish the original photograph.

In this pair, you can see that the lady’s clothing and the flowers in her hair have been painted in, and her cheeks tinted. The man’s hair and beard have been enhanced. 

Then, as is common with painted tintypes, the maker, convinced that “More is More” embellished the mat and frame.  In this case someone did an oval of gold glitter on top of another oval of red paper under the white mat and the three-layered wood frame, which is almost like a shadow box.

These couples clearly have been together so long they started to look alike, and their stern visages embody, like the Grant Wood portrait,  the best qualities of the steadfast American spirit.  They are the salt of the earth.

What Is Kathy Lagoli and Why Is She Stalking Bloggers?

On April 6 at 12:08 p.m.  I received an e-mail in my spam folder with the subject line: “Re: Grafton Inn Ambrotype.”

It came from someone named Kathy Lagoli with the e-mail address: Kathy@thingdiamond.com and the message was just one line:  “Would you be available to discuss this on the phone? Kathy”

At the same time she was sending this to me, she (it?) was also sending the same message to approximately a trillion other bloggers, and in each case the subject line referred to some subject they had written about in their blog.

I would have realized this immediately if I had the sense to investigate and type  the name “Kathy Lagoli” into Google.  Try it and you will find page after page of entries with titles like this: “Do Not Open An E-Mail from Kathy Lagoli”, “Kathy Lagoli SCAM!” and  “Kathy Lagoli has Been Here Too.”  All were written beginning April 6.

It seems that all of these astute bloggers smelled a rat and checked her out before replying.  Many of them then changed the password on their blog and even their phone number if they had revealed it.

But I—a rolling crone who is not very astute about such things, wrote her right back BEFORE I checked Google.  Her subject line referred to an antique photograph—an ambrotype—that I wrote about in my blog in January of 2010—it’s a photograph of the Inn on our New England village green that is still in business, and it may be one of the oldest photographs of our village ever taken.

I thought that maybe Kathy was a neighbor who wanted to use the ambrotype for some historical commemorative event—(My same blog post appeared in our local paper.)  Or  I thought maybe she was a collector who wanted to offer me a small fortune to sell the ambrotype.

So here’s what I replied at 10:22 p.m. on April 6—full of personal information that I should have kept to myself—

“Hi Kathy,

You can call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX tomorrow (Thursday).  I’ll be in and out all day because I just got back from Florida and am leaving for New York on Friday, so it’s sort of hit or miss as to when I’ll be in.  But if I’m out and you leave a number I’ll call you back.

Joan (Gage)”

I know you’re thinking that I’ve just fallen off the cabbage truck,  and you’d be right--I’m a friendly person from Minnesota and we’re not very suspicious of strangers.  That’s why they call it “Minnesota nice.”

Then AFTER hitting “send”, I looked at Google and realized I had put myself, my computer and my family in grave danger.  Would some evil apparition out of “Nightmare on Elm Street” come round and break into my house while I was away on the weekend?  Would my Mac powerbook explode in my face? Should I change my password?

I knew from reading all the warnings that if Kathy didn’t get a reply, she would send another e-mail later in the day that read “Hello, Hey I didn’t hear back from you. Are you still in business?”

Oddly enough, despite my effluent, chatty answer to her, I got the above e-mail (still in my spam folder) at 5 p.m. on April 7.  Naturally I didn’t reply.

On April 8 at 1:32 p.m. I got another message from Kathy, this one with a different subject line:  “December—a Rolling Crone: December 2010”. Her one line message this time:  “Hello, is it still availible?” [sic]

Now I ‘m not totally naïve—I don’t reply to messages that are marked “Urgent”, “Dearest One”, “Can I trust you?” and “You have won the Lottery”.   And I’m suspicious of people who can’t spell or who write in  pigeon English.  But I wasn’t clever enough to check on Kathy before the damage was done.

I’ve been spending a lot of time wondering what exactly this mysterious correspondent wants from me. I do realize it’s a robot machine sending these e-mails, just phishing—but I can’t figure out what this phisher is going to do with my phone number and e-mail address.  At no point has she (It) asked me for any money or more personal information.  I don’t have the energy to change my phone number.  Some of Kathy’s victims have written that their cell phones went on the fritz shortly after they gave her their number.  Is it a curse? An evil techno-eating virus?

Then, on Saturday April 9 at 8:46 p.m. I got a last (I hope) e-mail from Kathy—this one went straight to my in-box, not to the Spam.

Here’s what it said:

“Sorry I think I have the wrong email.

Kathy “

She has been an interesting and persistent correspondent, but I’m hoping that,  from now on, Kathy Lagoli is out of my life.

Diane Arbus and Spooky Twins

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them)


Long before she killed herself in 1971 at the age of 48, (pills, slashed wrists, found in the bathtub two days later), the photographer Diane Arbus told a friend she was afraid that she would be remembered simply as “the photographer of freaks.”

Today that’s exactly how she is remembered for her searing, macabre photographs of “deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal,” as one biographer described her favorite subjects.

But one of her most famous photographs (on the left above) is not of circus freaks or mentally challenged people, but of identical twin girls taken in Roselle, N.J. in 1967.

This eerie photograph of young sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade has been copied and echoed many times—including in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘”The Shining” with its twin girl ghosts. In fact there’s a TV commercial on right now (for kitchen appliances) with a pair of similar sinister girls.

A print of Arbus’s twins was sold at auction for $478,000 in 2004 and a couple of months ago I saw another one at the AIPAD photography show in New York that was priced at around $275,000 for a tiny print with Arbus’s notes on the back.

Let’s face it, there’s something intrinsically spooky about twins—especially identical twins—because it’s shocking to see the same individual, the same face, doubled and standing side by side. Maybe that’s why I (and many other collectors) love to find vintage photographic images of twins. They always seem to look like something out of Stephen King.

The 1/6 plate daguerreotype, #1, that I have above next to the Arbus twins, is my favorite dag ever. In my opinion it’s just as good – if not better -- than the Arbus image. The two little girls, who were photographed in the 1840’s or 1850’s, look amazingly like the twins from New Jersey. Compare the faces of the girls on the left in each photo.

The stern young ladies in image #1 are each holding a daguerreotype case inlaid with mother of pearl, and they wear identical gold-tinted pendents and dresses.

(In vintage photos it’s very common for siblings—not just twins -- to be dressed alike, because Mom would buy a long length of fabric and then the dressmaker would come around to stitch up clothing for all the kids from the same bolt of cloth.)

These are some of my prize twin images—all of them spooky. In the early days of photography, people were not only intimidated by this modern invention, they were warned not to move—certainly not to smile—because it would blur the image. Children were often strapped into a chair with their heads in a brace. No wonder they often look terrified!



Images 1 , 2, 3, 4 and 5 above are all daguerreotypes—the very earliest photographic process. Don’t you love the dour sisters in the checkerboard dresses in #3 (not a flattering pattern!) and next to them the long-faced girls in plaid. The sisters in image 5 I suspect, because of their somber clothing and jewelry, may be in mourning.



The girls holding books in image 6 are not identical, but the men in image 7 are mirror images of each other. I love how their top-knots curl in opposite directions. (Six and 7 are ambrotypes—negative images on glass—popular from 1854 to 1865.) People were always worried about how to pose their hands in these early days, and the photographer would arrange hands awkwardly like the ones you see here.



The two women in image 9 may not be twins, or even sisters, but I cherish them because they are feminists from the mid-1800’s! Written in the case behind their daguerreotype is this: “Mary, you and my self are still left single/ while others are double and full of trouble. Your KPL”



Photos 11 to 14 are tintypes, which became popular during the Civil War and continued into the 1900’s. The girls in 11 and the boys in 12 have high button shoes, and the ladies in #14, in ruffled skirts, are posed in a photographer’s studio. Check out the bathing beauties in #13, on a holiday at the seashore (but posed in front of a painted canvas background.)



The toddlers in # 15 are boy/girl twins. (Boys wore dresses until after age 5.) Their mother has written on the back of the cabinet card “Twins. Left, Louise Bertha Inez Forte. Right Louis Bertrand Forte. Born June 13th, 1893 at 2 p.m. in West Newton. Louis was born 5 minutes after Louise.”

An equally helpful relative noted the names of the young flappers in image #16, who look very chic in their cloche hats, as “Alice Antoinette Howland and Harriet Alma Howland, 1926.” Their relaxed pose in their fur-collared coats makes for a beautiful portrait, but none of the twins can compare to my ghostly, sour-faced girls from 170 years ago in image #1.

A Mystery – Is this a Lost Portrait of Lord Byron?

(The story behind the photograph)

Last weekend I was lucky to attend a couple of fascinating photo shows in New York City including the AIPAD photography show in the Park Avenue Armory, featuring vintage and contemporary photos at amazingly high prices.

At another photo show nearby I did find some vintage photos I could afford, and one of them was a 1/4 plate ambrotype of an oil painting of Lord Byron in a half case. It even had tinted cheeks. (It’s at the top row above—both in and out of its protective case, metal mat, preserver and cover glass. Click on it to make it bigger.)

The dealer who sold me the image said he thought it was “some actor” but I knew that it was the famous English poet George Gordon Lord Byron. In fact I thought it was a photograph of some famous Byron portrait that I had possibly studied in college when I was minoring in art history. (Naturally I didn’t mention this to the dealer, and managed to negotiate a reasonable price for the ambrotype.)

So when I got home with the cased photograph, I started googling portraits of Lord Byron to see which painter had painted “my” image…I quickly learned that the most famous portrait of Byron, painted in 1814, was by Thomas Phillips. It’s the one in the second row above. He also painted the portrait of Byron in Albanian dress, in the third row.

Other images of Byron are in the row below. Most of them were done during Byron’s lifetime (1788 – 1824) --- or shortly after.

Lord Byron was, of course, sort of a rock star in his day. He created the idea of the troubled and troublesome Byronic hero. Lady Caroline Lamb famously called him “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. Mothers of young ladies of London wouldn’t even let their daughters look at him because he was so notorious for seducing every woman who crossed his path – including his half sister — and then dumping them, causing heartache and madness. He liked young boys too.

Lord Byron clinched his fame by dying tragically in Missolonghi, Greece in 1824 as he was fighting (and donating his large fortune) to help the Greek people achieve independence from the Turkish occupation. (Today, March 25, is Greece's Independence Day. They finally succeeded in tossing out the Turks after 400 years. Zito Hellas!)

As the most famous Philhellene, Lord Byron is beloved in Greece. Streets and baby boys are named after him, and whenever I’m in the center of Athens I pass a large statue of the dying Byron, clasped in the arms of a woman representing Hellas -- Greece. When Byron died of the flu (and the lousy medical treatment by his doctors—especially the bloodletting) he was only 36 years old.

But the more I searched, the more surprised I was to see that --while the face of Byron in paintings and drawings was almost identical to that in my ambrotype, none of the portraits I found was identical. The flowing lacy collar of his open shirt and the hairline -- the way his curls fell on his forehead --were always different from the version I have. (But the way his hair is receding at the temples remains consistent in all.)

This led me to wonder if by any chance my ambrotype was a record of a “lost” oil portrait of Byron by some famous nineteenth century artist?? The ambrotype photographic process (the second kind of photography after daguerreotypes) was introduced in 1854, peaked in 1857-59 and waned in 1861 when the more convenient and inexpensive tintype became popular.

So my ambrotype of a Byron portrait was probably made around 1857. The painting really resembles the Phillips portrait and could even possibly be another portrait of Byron by the same hand??

If it really is a lost portrait, of course, it makes the ambrotype I bought more valuable.

You can see in my scan that there is a frame around the painting that was photographed. If this is a frame to the oil painting, it could help identify the original. On the other hand, it could be the metal preserver on another ambrotype or daguerreotype — which would make my image a “copy image” and therefore less valuable.

An ambrotype is a negative image on glass that becomes a positive image when you put a dark background behind it. Every daguerreotype and ambrotype is one-of-a-kind…and reversed — a mirror image of the sitter. The only way to make a copy of a dag or an ambro was just to photograph the image all over again—and that comes out less sharp.

I hope to solve the mystery of my “lost Portrait of Byron” by sending these scans to both the Byron Society of America and to the newsletter of the Daguerreian Society, of which I am a member.

In the end, I may find out that my “lost” Byron portrait is in fact a well-known image that everyone else can identify. And that’s okay, because I’m still delighted to have the striking image of a beautiful painting of one of our most famous poets.

If anyone has any info on this subject – please let me know at joanpgage@yahoo.com

Historic Photo of My New England Village

New England is dotted with picturesque villages, each with its own Common or Village Green surrounded by white church spires, an ornate town hall and imposing Colonial and Victorian mansions. Every Yankee will argue that his own village is the prettiest and most historic.

I want to nominate MY village of Grafton MA , which is celebrating its 275th anniversary in 2010, and to share with you what may be one of the earliest photographs taken of the Grafton Common.

But first some of Grafton’s history:

*Grafton, incorporated in 1735, was originally called “Hassanamesit”, a Native American word meaning “place of small stones.”

*Four acres were set aside as common land in 1728. The present town Common is so typical of New England that MGM filmed parts of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah Wilderness there in 1935. MGM built the bandstand on the spot where Grafton’s first meeting house stood. It has become the town’s trademark. The Common holds a big Independence Day concert annually and the Bandstand is the site for prom and wedding photos and festivals year ‘round.

*In the 1800’s Grafton became a national leader in leather tanning and currying and in boot and shoe production, specializing in work boots for slave use in the South. By 1866 there were 10 boot-making shops, two tanneries and several other leather goods establishments around the Common.

*In 1806 Jonathan Wheeler built the Wheeler block, which still houses the Grafton Country Store and other businesses.

*The Congregational Church at the west side of the common has steeple and gallery clocks made by the Willard family, the famed Grafton clock makers. Their original house and clock factory is now a museum, a few miles north of the Common.

*Shoe manufacturer Samuel Wood built the Grafton Inn, the oldest structure on the Common, in 1805 at the intersection of key stagecoach routes from Boston to Hartford and from Providence to Worcester.

Last week the Grafton News, our small weekly newspaper, stated: “As part of this yearlong celebration, the Grafton News is compiling a virtual scrapbook of the town’s history at www.grafton275.org….If you have a historic tidbits or photos that you would like to share, please email them to us.”

Just last year I acquired a wonderful cased image-- an ambrotype of the Grafton Inn, which has functioned as an inn on the Common for its entire 205 years. It’s one of the favorite images in my collection of antique photos. So I scanned it (above) and e-mailed it to the editor with the following letter.

Dear Grafton News,

I am attaching two views of what probably may be the earliest photograph of Grafton you receive.

It’s an ambrotype of the Grafton Inn. Ambrotypes were introduced in 1854 and were popular until 1861. An ambrotype is a negative image produced on a glass plate which becomes positive with the addition of black backing.

(The first kind of photograph, introduced in 1839, is a daguerreotype –an image produced on a silver-coated copper plate. Both daguerreotypes and ambrotypes must be protected by a piece of glass and then a brass mat and then they are kept in a case which opens like a book.)

This is a 1/6 plate ambrotype, which means it is about 2.5 by 3 inches in size. It has black paint behind the image and the paint is damaged. I am attaching one view of the image with the protective mat and one in which I took away the mat so you can see more of the scene. Clearly the image needs cleaning and restoration but I am not expert enough to do this.

This image of the Inn could date from anytime between 1854 and 1861. If you look carefully you can see the figure of a little boy holding the horse and carriage (while the owner of the carriage, inside, is probably taking some refreshment.) There is also a figure in white clothing in the side door, watching the boy. I think it may be a woman with a white apron.

The editor of the Grafton News, Don Clark, wrote back the same day that he intends to publish it both in the newspaper and on the website. So I thought I’d give a sneak preview to the readers of ”ARollingCrone”.

The color photo above is one I took a few years ago, showing the Inn and the Bandstand as they look today.

Story behind the Photo: Elizabeth Keckley— First Black Woman in the White House

On Sept. 27, I posted the story of Elizabeth Keckley, who was born a mixed-race slave in 1818 in a Virginia. (Her father was the owner of herself and her mother). She went on to be raped by a white man and have a son who was 3/4 white, buy her own and her son’s freedom through her sewing skills, move to Washington D.C. to become the leading society dressmaker, and she made the inauguration gown and every subsequent dress of the new First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln.

She became the only one who could calm Mrs. Lincoln before a party, dressed her,and chose her accessories. Ultimately Elizabeth became her close friend and companion. After the president’s assassination, Keckley was the first person Mrs. Lincoln asked for. When the widow moved back to Chicago, they had a long correspondence and ultimately Elizabeth Keckley, who had founded several philanthropies to helped former slaves, wrote a book called “Behind the Scenes Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House.”

This caused such a scandal that Elizabeth Keckley was abandoned by her white customers, and, despite working as a professor of “Sewing and Domestic Science Arts” at Wilberforce University into her 80’s, she died at the age of 89 in the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children, which she had helped establish. Her son, who passed as white in order to serve in the Union Army, was killed in action in 1861.

I had never heard of this remarkable woman when I bought a 1/6 plate ruby glass ambrotype in a gold-embellished thermoplastic case from a seller on E-Bay in 2007. He evidently had never heard of her either, because he added later in the auction: “I have had several e-mails with the observation that a person with the name “Elizabeth Keckley” was a 19th century American author and could have had some connection with the Federal government and White House during the American Civil War.”

As he said in the original description, a paper note is pinned to the velvet lining of the cover with the words “Elizabeth Keckley, formerly a Slave”.

I collect antique photographs having to do with slavery and black Americana, so I bought this one, winning the auction with a price of $227.50. If the seller had mentioned a Lincoln connection the ambrotype, it would have gone for much more. I’ve seen a carte de visite photograph of Lincoln’s dog, Fido, go for several thousand dollars.

When I received the ambrotype and researched it, I was thrilled—mainly to learn about this extraordinary woman who achieved so much during the Civil War era. But I’m not at all sure that the mixed-race black woman in the ambrotype is really Elizabeth Keckley. (The seller may have refrained from mentioning Lincoln so he couldn’t be accused of misrepresenting the image, or he could just have been ill-informed.)

I am posting the only three published images of Elizabeth Keckley that I could find in the collage at the bottom--from youngest to oldest. “My” image, at the top, would be an even younger version of her, or it could be someone else entirely. There are similarities, certainly, including the earrings. The nice thermoplastic Union Case housing the image would have cost the sitter more than the common embossed leather cases. The woman in the ambrotype is richly and fashionably dressed and clearly mixed race. Is it Elizabeth Keckley?

What do you think? Let me know at joanpgage@yahoo.com

FIRST BLACK WOMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE -- ELIZABETH KECKLEY

(This is the first of an occasional “Crone of the Week”-- women whose stories I want to tell. I’d appreciate your suggestions of women in history who accomplished something courageous, significant or even outrageous during their cronehood years and deserve to be featured on A Rolling Crone. You can e-mail me at joanpgage@yahoo.com)

Born a slave in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley (also spelled Keckly) became—not the first black woman to work in the White House—there were surely some employed as workers and servants before her- but she was the first black woman to have so much influence on and access to the President’s family that she became the first person ever to write a back-stairs book, revealing the inner workings of Abraham Lincoln’s domestic life. Keckley was the only person who could calm Mary Todd Lincoln when she would suffer a nervous crisis before an important event. After the inauguration, Mrs. Lincoln insisted all her gowns be made by Keckley. (One of them is pictured above.) She turned to the former slave for help and advice on domestic details and protocol for White House parties. Elizabeth traded jokes and compliments with the president, who teased his wife about her penchant for low necklines and said to Mary, when he saw the first Keckley-made gown, “I declare, you look charming in that dress. Mrs. Keckley has met with great success.” Elizabeth also served the Lincolns as a baby sitter when the boys were ill, and nursed the first lady when she was suffering one of her crippling headaches.

Elizabeth was born to a slave named Agnes, owned by Armistead and Mary Burwell in Dinwiddie, VA. “Aggy” had been taught to read (which was illegal) and she taught Elizabeth to read and to sew, and they both worked as house slaves to the Burwell children. On Aggy’s death bed she revealed to her daughter that their master, Armistead Burwell, was also Elizabeth’s father.

After Burwell died, Elizabeth was loaned to other owners who beat her, although she defied them and refused to cry out. She was eventually raped by a white man, and gave birth to her only child, George. Since Elizabeth was mixed race and her rapist was white, George was so light that he claimed he was white in order to serve in the Union Army. He was killed in action in 1861.

Through a combination of business acumen, sewing skills and intelligence, Elizabeth eventually managed to buy freedom for her son and herself, and moved to Washington D.C. where she became the most favored modiste to the likes of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. Another socialite introduced her to Mary Todd Lincoln, who had just arrived in Washington and was very insecure about the city’s fashion sophistication and social mores.

Elizabeth then became the exclusive dressmaker for the new first lady, as well as her best friend and confidant. She would dress and calm Mary before every event, fixing her hair, accessories and jewels. As she prepared the first lady, Elizabeth would chat with the president and received many compliments from him for her skills. When Lincoln was assassinated, the first person Mary Todd Lincoln called to be with her was Elizabeth Keckley.

When Mrs. Lincoln moved back to Illinois after the assassination, she insisted that Elizabeth travel with her. Keckley returned to her profitable dressmaking business in Washington, and the widow wrote her many letters. Finally, Mrs. Lincoln, convinced she was running out of money, told Keckley to meet her in New York City where, using assumed names, they tried to sell possessions and clothing of the Lincolns to raise funds. Word got out about what Mary Lincoln was doing, and she felt disgraced by the news reports. Elizabeth Keckley then wrote what was the first backstairs-at-the-White-House tell-all, called, “Behind the Scenes Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House”. In the back of the book was an appendix with 24 letters that Mrs. Lincoln had written to Elizabeth, including the statement that she considered her “my best living friend.” The book was denounced by everyone from Lincoln’s son Robert to the New York Times as “backstairs gossip” that desecrated the memory of President Lincoln, although Mrs. Keckley kept trying to explain that she only meant to defend Mrs. Lincoln.

Mary Lincoln felt betrayed and their friendship ended. Eventually, when the former first lady descended into total madness, her son had her institutionalized.

Meanwhile Elizabeth Keckley continued to earn money by sewing—although most of her white clients had abandoned her. In 1892, when she was 74, she moved to Ohio to become head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts at Wilberforce University, which her son had attended. She organized a dress exhibit at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and, in her 80’s, she returned to Washington to live in the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children—which had been established in part by the Contraband Relief Association that Keckley founded during the war to help freed slaves. Until her death, Elizabeth had a photograph of Mrs. Lincoln on her wall. She died in 1907 at the age of 89 and was buried in Harmony Cemetery in Washington. She had been careful to pay far in advance for a plot and a stone, but when the graves were moved to a new cemetery, her unclaimed remains were placed in an unmarked grave.

I learned about Elizabeth Keckley when I bought, on E-Bay, a cased ambrotype portrait of a mixed-race woman. Pinned to the velvet lining was a scrap of paper with the words “Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave”. Many of my favorite crones were introduced to me through antique photographs that I’ve bought and then researched, to find out their “back story.” In my next post I’m going to show you some portraits of Keckley and ask you to be a detective and help me find out if my E-Bay image of Elizabeth is authentic.