Mysteries in my Victorian Family Photos: How to Date Fashion History

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If you've inherited a stack of family photographs, or built up your own from antique stores, you'll have wondered what untold stories lie within them. Uncovering them can be as simple as putting dates to the captured scene! So, how do we date antique photographs? With a little bit of basic family history (really just birthdates and a few weddings) I managed to dig up a couple of fun stories about my own family.

Thankfully there are some ways to help narrow down a date range pretty quickly. Most importantly, what type of photograph is it? The vast majority will be the type printed on paper and pasted to cardboard. Early daguerrotypes are rare (notable as you have to be at an angle to see the image well), but are likely to be in the 1840s or 50s range. Tin types overlap a bit and run later, but as we reach the 1880s dry plate printing and other advances make photography much easier and affordable. This really is where most collections pick up, with posed studio photos at their peak between 1880 and the 1910s. As cameras become more readily available to laypeople in the 1920s and onwards, the style changes to be images of captured moments out and about, rather than carefully posed in a studio.

Met: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/libraries-and-research-centers/watson-digital-collections/costume-institute-collections/costume-institute-fashion-plates
Hathitrust: https://www.hathitrust.org/
NYPL: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
19th c womens hair: https://www.behance.net/gallery/54152721/Womens-headdresses-and-hairstyles-19th-century
19th c mens hair: https://www.behance.net/gallery/54595525/19th-Century-Mens-Headdresses-And-Hairstyles

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00:00 Small town Big fashion
07:11 Cameras
10:38 Silhouettes
14:25 Carter family 1860-1890
22:51 Ruch family 1895-1905