Historical Indulgences

ca. 1840-80, “Saucy Wench”

Your knowing wink and brazen stare,

Are just the signs that do declare,

(Howe’er you think conceal’d by art,)

An empty head and callous heart.

via the Library Company of Philadelphia, Comic Valentine’s Collection

ca. 1840’s, [two men brawling?]

via the Daguerreian Society, Mark Koenigsberg collection

ca. 1876, “Dreaming Holanthe: ‘A Study in Butter’ by Caroline S. Brooks”

…created for the First Official World fair held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876…[it traveled] over 2000 miles from Helena, Arkansas to be displayed during the United States Centennial. Original Sculpture was made of 9 pounds of butter in a 15 inch in diameter milk pan, on a kitchen table using only a butter paddle,cedar sticks,broom straw, a camel’s hair pencil and required no model.

via Old Coffin Nail

ca. 1847, [Dentist and Female Patient]

This daguerreotype is highly unusual for its era, in that the patient is female. Most likely she is the dentist’s or photographer’s wife. By including a woman, calmly sitting in the dental chair, the dentist conveys a mannered, non-frightening image of ‘painless dentistry.’

via the Burns Archive

ca. 1880’s, [tintype of a musical performer]

via Airform Archives

ca. 1845, “The Branded Hand of Captain Jonathan Walker”, Southworth and Hawes

The inscription on the back of the case reads:

This Daguerreotype was taken by Southworth Aug. 1845 it is a copy of Captain Jonathan Walker’s hand as branded by the U.S. Marshall of the Dist. of Florida for having helped 7 men to obtain ‘Life Liberty, and Happiness.’…

The brand is “S.S.” for “Slave Stealer”. This photo inspired the famous engraving “The Branded Hand”.

via the Daguerreian Society, from the Massachusetts Historical Society

ca. 1860, [Barnum’s circus “fat lady” Phebe Dunn at 17 years old, 407lbs]

via Gormer’s photostream on Flickr

ca. 1847, [staged dental extraction]

via the Burns Archive

[Late nineteenth century tintype of a woman]

via J. Cosmas Vintage Photography

ca. 1861-65, “To a Zouave”

Hero! how my fond heart doats

On your trowser petticoats;

On your leggins, tight and trim;

On your cap without a brim;

On your lip of hair prolific,

Arab-Yankee— you’re terrific!

There’s a wild light in your eye

—Is it valor? Is it rye?

O! beware of whisky-skin,

Brains go out as that goes in.

Sober keep, and by the Nine!

You shall be my Valentine.

via the Library Collection of Philadelphia, Comic Valentine Collection

ca. 1861-65, “To the Surgeon”

Ho! ho! old saw bones, here you come,

Yes, when the rebels whack us,

You are always ready with your traps,

To mangle, saw, and hack us.

via the Library Company of Philadelphia, McAllister Collection

ca. 1890-1900, [Rough sea, Bognor, England], Detroit Publishing Co.

via the Library of Congress, Photochrom Prints Collection

ca. 1899, “A Group of Schoolchildren and Their Teacher Observing Tortoises at the Zoo”, Frances Benjamin Johnston

via the Smithsonian Photography Initiative

ca. 1850, [Couple Holding Daguerreotype]

via the Museum of Strange and Wondrous Things

ca. 1885, [“Victorian heads afloat”]

via the Burns Archive