MOUNT VERNON — Once a month, we feature a pair of vintage cabinet card photographs taken in Knox County which do not have names identifying the people in the pictures.
They were all taken by photographers who had studios in Mount Vernon. Cabinet cards were a popular format for sharing photos in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
This month’s photos are both from the Star & Crescent Art Gallery, located at 137 South Main Street in Mount Vernon. While several of the cabinet cards we are examining in this series were produced by this gallery, they appear to only have been in business a short period of time in the late 1800s, though the address they list had long been the photography studio of A. B. Elliott, discussed in last month’s mystery photo column.
Apparently, when he retired, he sold the studio to the unknown proprietor of the Star & Crescent Art Gallery, who, unfortunately, did not thrive.
Photo #5 shows a woman in a dark, formal dress. She is standing next to a chair draped with what appears to be a fur rug. Fading out behind her is a painted backdrop.
Photo #6 is a kind-faced woman in a white dress with a dark collar. Both photos seem a touch over-exposed, perhaps betraying a young photographer not yet well-practiced in his skills.
No one was able to identify last month’s photos, though on the Knox Pages Facebook posting, reader Beverly Beckley made a good point: the child could also be a little boy. In those days, it was common for infants to be dressed in frilly clothes, with “boyish” clothes only being used later.
Reader Marty Vogel also pointed out the fascinating possibility of the child photo being a post-mortem picture. That was sometimes done in the late 1800s. Since the technology existed to take a permanent photograph, sometimes parents would elect to pose a picture of a dead child so that they would have a memento. Considering that a regular photo required a stiff, awkward pose because of long exposure times, it can hard to tell the difference between living and dead children in such photos.
But there’s little question about the liveliness of this month’s subjects. Please share this column far and wide so we can try to ID these photos. If you have any leads on who these people might be, contact me here at Knox Pages. I’ll report back next month on any progress naming these folks, and bring forth two more cards.
