THE PHOTO REVIEW, vol. 21 no. 4 Fall 1998
"Pop Photographica in Everyday Life, 1842-1968"
By Daile Kaplan

Ten years ago I was invited to curate an exhibition for a small museum outside of New York City commemorating the 150th anniversary of photography. (1) Casting a wide net, I sought out materials, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, that demonstrated how photography was assimilated into popular culture. Featured were vernacular photographs, that is, 19th-century snapshots by ‘big shots," including Queen Victoria, hand-painted tintypes by anonymous practitioners, Kodak pictures by amateur photographers, 20th-century family photo albums in addition to unique 3-dimensional decorative and functional objects incorporating photographic images. The mixed-media political, advertising, or domestic photographic artifacts represented a novel, often humorous, method of examining photography’s social origins. But one would be hard pressed to discover references to such items in standard historical texts. Why have they been omitted from photographic discourse? How might they be referred to and contextualized? And, in what ways do they rewrite the canon?

The following, based on an illustrated lecture I gave at the Society for Photographic Education National Conference, held in Philadelphia in spring 1998, is an attempt to address these issues by focusing on domestic and/or personal artifacts that incorporate fine art, vernacular, or documentary photographs. These quirky items, which I refer to as "pop photographica,"graphically demonstrate the uses of photography. They may feature hard iamges (such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, or tintypes); blue-toned cyanotypes on fabric; lantern slides; or paper images (such as calotypes, albumen, or silver prints), each integrated onto a variety of household articles.

The time frame of my research, 1839 through 1969, encompasses the period when photographic expression was introduced to the Vietnam era, when the picture media exploded into ascendency. I will concentrate first on European photo culture, since some of photography’s earliest novelties were introduced in England and France soon after daguerreotypes and calotypes were introduced, and then highlight American photo objects. This article is intended to serve as an overview of the type of objects available; the social historical impetus for the creation of these materials, and the inherent problems present in a history of photography exclusively dependent on so-called masterworks.

With notable exceptions, the rich treasure trove of photo objects created during the past 150 years has not been the focal point of curators or historians. However, Geoffrey Batchen’s exhibition, "Photography Objects," at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, as well as two books, Heinz and Bridget Henisches’s encyclopedic The Photographic Experience, Images and Attitudes, published last year, and Michel Braive’s The Social Photograph (London and New York, 1962) attempt to redress these oversights. (2) Batchen, a professor of art history at the University of New Mexico, takes a post-modernist position, employing semiotics to cast photography’s "complex identity." Braive’s and the Henischs’s approach might best be characterized as pre-modernist insofar as their analyses, which terminate at the outset of the First World War, fail to take into in to account how the advent of modernism reimagined our culture as one distinctly image-oriented. So, while photographic culture continues to reinvent itself, "photography’s objects" exist at its margins.

Today, for example, one can see a plethora of new artifacts reflecting the public’s seemingly insatiable desire to incorporate photography into daily life, among them the custom-made mass-produced object: mouse pads containing transfer photographs of grandkids; umbrellas festooned with Rauschenberg’s combine paintings; and "tombware" gravestones equipped with a "visual eulogy" system, a chip with enough memory to hold up to 250 pages of photographs and text about the deceased. (3)

These socially utilitarian tschochtkes seem to become aesthetically dumber or more outrageous in time. Yet, these products are modern iterations of historical, popular photographic impulses. For example, the use of daguerreian portraits on tombstones was not uncommon in the 1840s-50s. A daguerreotype portrait of Mary Gideon was set into the original monument in the Historical Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D. C. A substantially diminished version of her marker, with the daguerreotype still intact, is housed in The Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, and is also featured on its website. (4)

Even fine art photographs find their way into mainstream culture in seemingly banal forms. In the summer of 1997, I was contacted by the U. S. Postal Service when it decided to issue a 32 cent postage stamp honoring Lewis Hine. Acting as their consultant, I selected three possible images for them to consider to as part of their "Celebrate the Century Series," a marketing campaign aimed at encouraging the philatelic-buying public to purchase more stamps and bolster this now private company’s profits. An image of a young girl standing before bobbin machinery was selected. (5) Although Hine’s name does not appear on the stamp, this picture will ultimately become part of the vast image bank that is the collective conscious. The stamp evolved out of practical circumstances. However, stamps are generally consigned to the dustbin euphemistically referred to "ephemera," the detritus that is (disposable) popular culture and generally not subjected to serious cultural analysis.

When Beaumont Newhall referred to the "democratization of photography" in his influential history, he was simply noting the impact of the Kodak camer and the commensurate proliferation of photographs by amateurs—rather than the effect of popular culture on the photographic imagination. Curiously, while fine art discourse has celebrated the shotgun marriage of high and low culture, photography – the most democratic of arts – stands by primly, confident of its status as a fine art form. Can photography be all things to all people? Yes, provided a more encompassing framework is adopted that acknowledges the medium’s deep populist roots.

While material culture has been a useful paradigm for scholars of numerous disciplines, it has not been employed for the study of photography. And objects that incorporate photographs have "contributed very little to developing the themes of history as perceived by historians." But, as Jules David Prown has noted, "Artifacts constitute the only class of historical events that occurred in the past but survive into the present. They can be reexperienced; they are authentic, primary historical material available for firsthand study." (6)

The problems posed by such objects differ from traditional decorative materials, such as those that fall under the category of folk art, which were made by a single artisan who, occasionally, signed a piece or developed a body of work that he or she was identified with. Most 19th- and 20th-century mixed-media have multiple references, since the article itself is not typically the work of the photographer. (8) Nomenclature is further complicated by the fact that the identity of the photographer is frequently unknown. Generally, these interlocking units—the object and the photograph--were created by the increasingly famous figure, Anonymous. And, by the turn of the century, many objects were mass-produced and customized with a photograph.

It is tempting to imagine that existing genres, such as folk or outsider art, may be useful in helping to classify such items. But what if fine art discourse is an inappropriate model? For example in the 1930s, the founders of the Museum of Modern Art – supporters of the popular arts – established a link between primitive folk art paintings and culpture as the foundation of the then emerging American modern art movement. How? By decontextualizing folk art objects to focus exclusively on their aesthetic merit. (9)

The problem of classification is complicated by the realization that folk, popular, and even post-modern aesthetics exist simultaneously within our culture, and may even coexist within the same object. Many 19th-century items reflect naïve impulses insofar as they were made by self-taught artists who flourished outside the sanctioned realms of conventional cultural influences. In an ideal form, they characterize what Avis Berman has described as "a validation of the questing spirit and the vitality of democracy, open to people of any race, class or gender." (10)

The trajectory of such thought may also include the term "vernacular," which is enjoying a renaissance in photographic circles today but was introduced 50 years ago by John Kouwenhoven, a professor of English at Columbia University. Kouwenhoven wrote that vernacular represented ". . . the unself-conscious efforts of common people, in America and elsewhere, to create satisfying patterns out of the elements of a new and culturally unassimilated environment. . ." (11) Though these functional or decorative objects were typically produced to beautify one’s personal environment or oneself, and though they may give pleasure in much the same way as a work of art, the production process, the social environment in which they flourished, and their functionality require that they be examined as a distinct, perhaps even idiosyncratic, cultural phenomenon that will undoubtedly deepen our appreciation of photographic culture.

And so I am proposing the term "pop photographica" to describe these articles, not so much for purposes of categorization but so that we may begin to identify the artifacts themselves. For they emerged in both urban and rural areas, were geared toward the affluent and working-class, appeared in forms that are both finished (read "sophisticated") or crude (read "primitive"), and were made by artisans, professional and amateur photographers, and, not incidentally, women (indeed, some objects may even quality as "women’s work"). Yet, it’s almost as if photography, which until recently was itself considered a bastard art form, has disowned these artifacts as its illegitimate offspring, perhaps to more easily ascend the ladder of decorum and good taste. (12)

The general public’s intimate, enjoyable relationship to photography is described in a little-known, quirky illustrated book entitled Photographic Amusements, which was published more than a hundred years ago and remained in print continuously for almost half a century. (13) Photographic Amusements was, simultaneously, a masterpiece of vernacular expression, a popular response to the growing elitism in photography, and, interestingly, a kind of primer for the emerging modernist artist who would thrive more than 20 years later. (14) Geared to the amateur enthusiast, it featured chapters about making, or transferring, snapshots onto eggs, apples, ceramics, wood, silk, and glass—in other words the very raw materials that were used to handcraft or manufacture quotidian, functional or non-functional articles. The range of 3-dimensional objects was as far-reaching as the popular imagination itself: cups, saucers, plates, women’s clothing and accessories, furniture, mirrors, lampshades, jewelry, and souvenirs, each festooned with photographic portraits of family, friends or notables, or landscapes and interior views.

Frank Fraprie and Walter Woodbury, the editors of this charming book, were themselves photographers and writers associated with ‘The Photographic Times’ and ‘The American Annual of Photography.’ They recognized that the field’s new fine art orientation, championed by their colleague Alfred Stieglitz, the editor of ‘Camera Notes,’ was ignoring the multiple applications that had made photography so popular in the first place.

Let’s begin with daguerreotypes. The first portraits, which were produced in the summer of 1839, were novelty items aimed at the France’s luxury goods market. Formally, they were modeled in many ways on the Europeans’ love of beautiful hand-painted miniatures, which were displayed on wall surfaces; daguerreotypes, however, were traditionally housed in leather cases, not frames, that were tucked away in cabinets or discretely laid on tabletops to be examined on special occasions. Exposures for these early portraits ranged between 15-20 minutes in bright sunlight. Within a matter of months, however, shorter focal length lenses reduced the duration of the exposure times considerably, and by 1841, with the introduction of accelerators and the Petzal lens, commercial daguerreian studios appeared.

Approximately 95% of the millions of daguerreotypes produced were portraits, and each portrait was a unique, one-of-a-kind photograph, not a multiple. (15) Since daguerreian plates were confined to specific sizes, known as whole-plate, half-plate, quarter, etc., daguerreotypes may be found in standard formats that were subsequently set into handsome leather or plastic cases or affixed to objects. Daguerreotypes have a fragile mirror-like surface that must never be touched; thus, they are always protected with a cover glass and mat. The package is sealed with paper tape, and a thin sheet of decoratively stamped brass (called a preserver) is placed around the edges to hold the entire package together.

In England, daguerreotypy seized the imagination of the carriage trade as fiercely as Fox Talbot’s competitive technique of calotypy. By the 1840s, there is evidence of European domestic objects or personal items incorporating daguerreotypes. This rosewood-veneered sewing box from the 1840s contains a beautifully executed studio portrait of an adolescent girl in its chamfered top lid, which is placed under glass to protect the fragile mirror-like surface.

Presumably a gift, the box has been personalized to contain a newly minted daguerreian portrait of its owner. Its interior, lined in plush red silk, and delicately accented with ivory appointments, indicates that this simple, finely crafted piece was directed to a tony clientele. Early decorative arts articles with daguerreotypes are extremely rare. But what was the purpose of introducing imagery onto an everyday object? Articles festooned with images implied good taste insofar as they identified a quotidian box, which may have been fabricated by an unknown artisan, as the property of an upper class person--thereby imparting more prestige to the artifact itself. And, such articles underscored the physicality of the daguerreotype. While the image alone may say, "This is me," when linked with an object it proclaims, "This is mine."

Nearly ten years later, an American sewing box more clearly demonstrates the devotion to manual craft that characterized 19th-century decorative arts. Its serviceable nature reflects a time when daily domestic objects were cherished and lovingly passed down from one generation to the next. The hand-carved fleur-de-lis exterior, highlighted with burl walnut corners, has exceptional detail. Inside are several wooden trays, which reveal extraordinary interior marquetry, and a dazzling cross-hatched pattern. Tiny secret drawers, ornamented with delicate ivory handles, are placed at the very bottom; one can only imagine the scores of hours involved in fabricating such an object.

Perhaps a dowry item, it is a stunningly crafted, heavy, handsome but above all functional piece oddly offset by the mediocre examples of photography inside the top cover. These ordinary photographs, sixth-plate daguerreotypes and a tintype that each measure three by two inches are proto-snapshots, not very accomplished images even if they were made by a professional, ancillary to the object itself. Taken on separate occasions and then married to the box to create a single coherent object, the series of images display a telegraphed visual chronology of a woman’s life spanning a period of at least ten years. Flanking the central arch topped mirror, is a study of a young woman, a second, companion image of this same woman and her sister, a third dag of well-dressed man, and a tintype (a process introduced just prior to the Civil War, and made of japanned iron (not tin) of the woman, slightly older, with her child. This assemblage of family portraits was, apparently, to be glimpsed at regular intervals when darning or sewing, in much the same way people turn on the tv for visual stimulation (or background noise) when they are absorbed in a chore. In this way we may understand how photographs were integrated into the very fabric of daily life. The box also suggests that objects like this one also served as an alternative to the family photo album, which always occupied a place in honor in the Victorian home.

Subsequently, the miniaturization of daguerreotypes and their subsequent appearance in jewelry, rings, hat pins, brooches, pendants, watch fobs, and bracelets was possible in the 1850s by J. B. Dancer of England, a pioneer in micro-photography.(16) Early daguerreian pieces of the 1840s may have been marketed to the haute bourgeoisie, but by the following decade mid-market items were introduced. These daguerreotypes too were occasionally highlighted with hand-tinting to better resemble miniature painting or gilded to accentuate items of jewelry worn by the subject. Photo-jewelry was worn by men, women, and children and almost always featured portraits of oneself or loved ones, which were referred to in the sentimental literature of the period as "the human face divine."

A daguerreian baby bracelet, its nationality uncertain, demonstrates how Victorian society utilized photographic portraits as both decoration and memento mori. Daguerreotypes, which are highly polished silver-coated sheets of copper, read as negative or positive depending on the angle of vision. The tiny gold-plated bracelet, which measures approximately two inches in diameter, reveals itself as a special kind of heirloom in that it was obviously worn by an infant. Delicately shifting the piece brings an image of a Madonna-like figure into view. Startling in its intensity given its size, about a half-inch long, the woman is a spectral presence watching over her infant. Though post-mortem images were very popular in the mid- to late-19th century, this daguerreotype depicts the subjects before her death, which makes it all the more poignant and haunting.

In many ways the proliferation of daguerreian jewelry came about due to the enthusiasm for photography demonstrated by the residents of Buckingham Palace, particularly the monarch herself. According to Heinz and Bridge Henisch, Queen Victoria may have been the single most important influence contributing to photography’s popularity; her passion for the medium was evident in her use of photography for purposes of ornamentation and her role as family photographer. Perhaps the earliest item exemplifying the use of photography as ornamentation is this royal sewing purse. The purse, measuring eight inches wide by seven inches high and accented with 14K gold, was a gift from the French government on the occasion of her marriage to Prince Albert. The central image shows a very young Queen, who ascended to the British throne at the age of 18, in 1837. Two of the circular images show a slightly older monarch, and the remaining pictures depict her loving consort. Interestingly, all of the photographs are calotypes (also known as Talbotypes, the earliest photographs from paper negatives) of paintings of the Queen. It is noteworthy that the French elected to highlight the work of the Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the calotype or salted paper print, rather than a daguerreotype, the competitive invention promoted by Louis Jacque Mande Daguerre, which all but eclipsed Fox Talbot’s process in the eyes of the public. When the object is opened to reveal its silk-lined contents, we see that all of the little compartments contain sewing instruments, also made of 14K gold, designed for the inveterate royal seamstress.

Another piece of Victoriana, a silk weaving of the Queen, which was purportedly modeled after a coronation portrait, has a wonderful detail that again points to her enthusiasm for photography. The 8x6 inch portrait shows her wearing a daguerreian bracelet (on her right wrist), which featured a sixth-plate daguerreotype of Prince Albert. Counterposing her carefully cultivated image as proper, forbidding monarch, this piece suggests that the Queen was also a traditional loving wife, as devoted to her husband as any woman of the period would be. She appears wearing this item of jewelry in many royal portraits and at informal events as well. In 1861, upon the death of Royal Consort, the Queen entered a protracted period of mourning in which she nourished the demand for photographic portraits by regularly wearing photographic jewelry. Though black jet and onyx were among the materials acceptable for use in jewelry on brooches and pins, at the Diamond Jubilee, in 1897—nearly 40 years after her husband’s death—she is depicted with this same bracelet. (17)

The desire for photographically-based luxury items was not limited to English royalty. Impeccably dressed aristocrats of all stripes, dandies and courtesans, too, were all eager to consume goods that pointed to the influence of British fashion standards. Contained in the hinged brass lid of this lovely, deep red, hand-blown perfume bottle, highlighted with a plethora of hand-painted tiny gold stars, is a portrait of a woman, presumably its owner. (The type of buffing that appears on the surface of a daguerreotype generally provides sufficient information to identify more finely buffed American plates from rougher European versions.) The theatrical quality of the piece, the gilded stars set off against the rich red background, indicates that this was an article directed at the haute bourgeoisie. A special piece, perhaps it also functioned as a talisman. Marcel Proust wrote of the vital role costume balls played in the social landscape of the era, and this objet evokes all the romanticism and glamour of such events. The bottle’s sensual color lends itself to all sorts of fantasies being played out in my mind: her elaborate preparations for evening soirees, carefully removing the bottle from a dressing table and opening it to dab exotic perfumes on her wrists and neck. The star motif may symbolize the possibility of passionate evenings where the woman was admired at grand fancy balls. And the secret picture compartment alludes to the daguerreotype as "the mirror with memory."

The preceding pieces may give the impression that daguerreian articles were gender-restricted. As this fountain pen illustrates, however, photo objects were also directed to upper class gentlemen. This solid gold, elegantly designed writing instrument which, incidentally, operated as both a retractable pen and pencil, features a portrait of a serious-visaged man under its hinged cap as well as the engraved initials "B.K." A sign of an educated, cultured gentleman, the pen might be withdrawn at public occasions to symbolize his status as a person of letters and refined taste. It may even have been linked to his occupation as, perhaps, a prominent banker. Though many woman’s artifacts were used in the private environment of the home or worn on the body, the pen was used in a public sphere. But as with any luxury item or prized personal possession that functioned largely as a sign of one’s class and status in society, it too reflects a fetishized narcissism.

Although the daguerreotype continued to be used for traditional portraiture until the Civil War, the novely wore off well before that when a new photographic process was developed. The daguerreotype’s inexpensive successor, the ambrotype, further assured photography’s assimilation into mainstream culture. (18) Many daguerreian artists swiftly expanded their operations to feature these unique images on glass, while younger practitioners quickly learned the technique, which was less labor intensive and risky to one’s health than daguerreotypy. With the proliferation of ambrotype studios, the marketplace became that much more competitive, and the successful entrepreneur was required to distinguish himself, not only by making fine daguerreotypes but in offering unique ways in which to and display them.

When Godey’s Lady Book, the American arbiter of haute fashion, informed its readers of the availability of hair bracelets with clasps made to hold daguerreotypes or ambrotypes, interest in the medium flowered. By the late 1850s, the sheer number of photographs being produced was staggering, even by today’s one-stop processing standards. Up until then photography’s activities had been largely localized in metropolitan areas, but in the years before the Civil War semi-isolated rural folk, too, had access to photographic portraits as itinerant practitioners set up their wagons, known as "saloons," for sittings. These traveling artists advertised the availability of ornamental items, such as gold-plated jewelry settings for earrings, brooches, and pins.

With the far-reaching effects of the Civil War, photo-jewelry was not only worn for self-adornment but also as an indication that a woman was in mourning. Such items became especially cherished during the conflict, when many lockets contained images of sweethearts or lost sons or husbands. While gold or silver were preferred settings for luxury items, more affordable electro- or gold-plating became an increasingly popular, and convincing, alternative for mid-market consumer goods. Fashion dictates prescribed that a woman in mourning should wear black onyx or armbands of black ribbon. A departure from the norm, this stunning period example of mourning jewelry, a matching brooch and earrings, was fabricated with identical black-and-white striped onyx. The brooch swivels to reveal a portrait of a young Union soldier on the reverse. On festive occasions, the pin hugs the wearer’s chest and the decorative, black-and-white onyx side reveals itself to the public.

At the same time, another process was being introduced into photoware: the tintype, later known as the ferrotype. Even today tintypes are a fixture on the craft fair circuit, as contemporary artists recycle old portraits into necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Unique images on japanned metal (not tin) were produced by a commercial photographer; large tintype portraits were occasionally hand-colored, though in a much cruder, more primitive style than daguerreotypes. Unlike the high market appeal of daguerreotypes and even ambrotypes, tintypes were resolutely geared to middle- and working-class folks, who readily consumed these penny items. Rustic in appearance and freer in their formal qualities, they range form studio pictures to outdoor scenes and were frequently employed for reproduction purposes, to copy photographic portraits of ancestors.

By the turn of the century, photographic objects were widespread, no longer confined to a well-heeled, fashion-attentive clientele. The availability of commercially produced paper stocks resulted in a further decrease in the price of images and, subsequently, jewelry items,. As cheap albumen and silver print portraits proliferated, the demand for inexpensive settings increased; eventually they were mass-produced.

A fully illustrated brochure published by the Pioneer Manufacturing Company, a photo jewelry fabricator with offices at 225 Bowery in New York City, is enlightening about the ‘can-do’ entrepreneurship that characterized the photographic industry. The preface reads: "The members constituting the Company were actually the "pioneers" in the photo jewelry business, notably so, the vice president, Mr. Harris, who was for a considerable time the only manufacturer of the kind in the East. How he drifted into the business is interesting. Mr. Harris had been a photographer for many years when, in 1895, an Alderman who was running for reelection gave him an order for campaign buttons. There was not a maker of photo buttons to be found in New York and so Mr. Harris, reluctant to confess himself unable to fill the order, got together the necessary machinery and made them himself. The machinery once acquired there was no reason why it should not be turned to permanent account, and so Mr. Harris remained in business." (19) During the 1920s and ‘30s Bakelite rings were made especially for men: festooned with decals, they featured color images of one’s children. Simple photo pinks with decorative bezels, a staple of the Pioneer Company, were also available.

An item that has captured my fancy is this belt buckle from the 1960s, which contains a laminated color photograph of an 18 wheeler, an image the truck driver clearly identified as a totem, a sign of his—I’m certain of the owner’s gender-- personal power. A fascinating piece, it demonstrates how work, rather than family, emerged as an alternative social construct in the mid-20th century. While totems are traditionally associated with animal figures, a contemporary western man would see this powerful vehicle as a source of his virility and strength. From the numerous scratches on its surface, he wore the image daily, no doubt with immense pride. Objects worn on the body represent some of the more traditional uses of photography, and the demand for articles to dress up oneself only increased: men’s dress shirts might be highlighted with cuff links in linked rolled gold settings depicting images of the wearer’s children, frequently hand-painted to resemble costly miniature ivory paintings, a luxury that only the rich could afford.

The invention of the handheld cameras that did not require technical expertise on the part of the photographer resulted in a style of image-making typically referred to as the snapshot. (20) Cyanotypes, which were enormously popular in the late 19th-century and are also enjoying a revival today, are blue-toned images contact-printed, in natural light, onto paper or cotton on linen. These fabrics might be styled into dresses, scarves, bathing suits, aprons, and vests.

In many ways cyanotype images best epitomize the vernacular impulse closely identified with the snapshot. They closely resemble Kodak Brownie images and are almost always shot and printed be obsessive amateurs who apparently had a passionate attachment to photographing their domestic environment (what else?) or family members at every conceivable opportunity. Such images were frequently pasted into albums or sewn into quilts or pillow covers, where they become the touching signs of commonplace activities of daily life.

A wonderful example is this travelogue, composed of 36 autonomous prints representing a young man’s trip from England to the Continent, sewn together into a cohesive object measuring 48x48 inches. Early- to mid-19th century photography was geared toward a formal representation of the self. But, by 1890, the camera was in the hands of millions and one’s milieu came to be seen as important a reflection of one’s identity as one’s own image. In the pictures that make up this objet we see a young man on the deck of a ferry, the cliffs of Dover in the background. Th sequence of pictures reveals other significant landmarks, Gothic edifices in France, canals in Holland, punctuated with the smiling visage of a tourist on holiday. While some of the photographs are a rich dark blue, other seems a bit overexposed and lighter—pointing to the handiwork of an amateur—but, significantly, all of the images were of equal importance to the maker, regardless of their lack of technical proficiency.

Other manifestations of pop photographica are ceramic, porcelain, and glass artifacts that reveal a variety of functions and properties. They were known as "pyro-photographs," since they were typically burned-in porcelain. The photographer J. Hambleton, of Philadelphia, advertising in "The Philadelphia Photographer," of 1874, claimed they were "produced equal to paper photographs or ferrotypes," and are "Imperishable. They never fade, even when exposed to weather for years."(21) A delicate bone china plate, which measures about 12 inches in diameter, has a dainty, unusual doily-like decorative border. It was found on the east coast, in Pennsylvania, and may have been presented to members of a local men’s club. The handsome serge gabardine garment the gentleman is wearing is nicely reflected in the sepia-toned finish of the photograph. An unusual item, the article was clearly used for display purposes, even though such items were generally functional. In another, similar example of pyro-photography, as brightly painted teacup and saucer features pretty pastel colors and a floral design that do not seem a particularly fitting background for the stern-faced young man depicted on its exterior. This study in contrasts raises the question of how these objects subvert contentions associated with male and female iconography.

Yet another piece demonstrating the use of this technique is this lovely bud vase with delicate hand-painted floral sprays above the portrait and the handwritten inscription "My Friends," it reflects an auspicious social occasion and cultural milieu. This cheerful yellow vase displays a young girl in profile on its ceramic face may commemorate this young woman’s coming-out party, since she appears to be about 16 years old. The photograph was permanently fired under the ceramic glaze along with the signatures of her prominent friends, who included the Bloomingdales, Rosenthals, and other well-known German-American Jewish families. The subtle visual metaphor, the wheel, signifies the importance of assimilation, as the spokes reflect the names of members of her already illustrious community, families who preceded her to the United States.
A somewhat atypical photo-object, a tall and rather heavy American funerary urn, molded and highlighted with gilt, still contains human ashes, presumably those of the woman pictured. Though painted to resemble hand-blown ruby glass, areas have begun to peel away to reveal that the actual material the urn was made of is a more banal (untinted) glass. (An alternative material, porcelain, was marketed to wealthier individuals.) Ornamental vases and urns were advertised in "Philadelphia Photographer," where one supplier, "Wilson Hood & Co," offered "several new styles after patterns used by M. Reutlinger of Paris."(22) A remarkable item, it is unclear whether the portrait adorning the urn was contemporary with the subject at the time of her death or is a more flattering study of her at a younger age. Ultimately what is fascinating about these objects is that they exist at all, since it was unusual for Christian or Jewish family members to have been cremated.

All of the objects mentioned so far depict pop photographica in Europe and the U. S., but the interest in this material was not restricted geographically. This handsome tea and chocolate set was found in an antique shop in Montevideo, Uruguay. Its ten cups are decorated with portraits of young women, while the larger pieces display images of older women. It is probably of German or Austrian origin but the reason for the varying photographic portraits is a mystery. Might they have been famous actresses of the time? This decorous set has a strong relationship to the elegantly fabricated, elaborate tea and dinner set Cindy Sherman, dazzlingly dressed as Madame de Pompadour, created with Limoges in 1991.

An exhibition at the Equitable Galery in New York City, entitled "Julien Levy: Portrait of a Gallery," indicates that popular influences in photography were being mined more than 60 years ago. Apparently Levy, an early champion of fine art photography, approached his friend Berenice Abbott about doing a series of photographs for prototypes of photographically decorated objects. Abbott, then a portrait photographer, shot close-ups of cigarettes for a cigarette case, sheets of crumpled paper for the exterior shell of a wastepaper basket, textile-like patterns for a free-standing room divider, and many other images. Selections from the portfolio were displayed in a section of the show devoted to the "Applied Arts." But Levy’s hopes of seeing photography crossover into popular culture found no takers, and not a single one of the objects was fabricated.

Indeed, throughout the high modernist period of the 1930s, photography was still a marginal activity, be it photo knickknacks or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s photograms. But pop photographica continued to thrive at the interstices of life and art. In the revised ten edition of Photographic Amusements, a chapter entitled "New Eyes, New Compositions, New Conscience"depicts the work of photographers associated with the New Objectivity movement alongside photo objects. This suggests that pop photographica was as integral to the formulation of the construction known as the "new vision" as were the fine art photographs that subsequently became synonymous with it. Perhaps today historians and curators will recognize that the underpinnings of photographic culture include documentary and fine art works by well-known masters as well as the wonderful universe of photographic objects by unknown artisans.

ENDNOTES

1. The exhibition "150 Years of Pop Photographica" was on display at the Islip Art Museum from December 11, 1988 through January 22, 1989. See my essay, "’A Photograph Needs a Wall,’ or Does It,?" in the catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibition.
2. See Michel Braive, The Social Photograph (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), first English Edition, and Heinz K. Henisch and Bridget A. Henisch, The Photographic Experience 1839-1914, Images and Attitudes (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).
3. Thanks to George Sullivan for sending me this magazine clip from Time, November 10, 1997, p. 31.
4. See Cliff Krainik’s "The Everlasting Portrait," The Daguerreian Annual 1990, 21-24.
5. The Hine stamp is a photo-engraved realistic representation of his image, unlike all the other stamps in the 1910s series, which are colorful renderings.
6. See "The Truth of Material Culture: History or Fiction," History from Things, Essays on Material Culture, edited by Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 1-19.
7. An ad in the "Wisconsin Express," February 13, 1851, for the daguerreian studio of W. H. White, in Madison, refers to "Pictures taken and set in cases, frames, lockets, pins, rings, etc."
8. Holger Cahill was the chief proponent of this strategy when, as president of the Museum of Modern Art, he appropriated primitive folk art paintings and utilitarian objects to demonstrate the roots of American modernism and design. See "Rose-Colored Glasses, Looking for ‘Good Design’ in American Folk Art," David Park Curry, An American Sampler, Folk Art from the Shelburne Museum (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1987), 24-41.
9. In her article, "Folk Tales," Art & Antiques Magazine, June 1997, 85-89, Berman posits the stimulating thesis that folk art was much more acceptable in the U. S. than in England despite a reliance on cultural cues from the mother country. While Americans embraced the itinerant folk artist, in England folk art "was the art of poor people."
10. John A. Kouwenhoven, The Arts in Modern American Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, Inc., 1948), 13.
11. Swann Galleries conducted the first photographs auction in the U. S., which was known as "The Marshall Sale," on Feburary 14, 1952.
12. Photographic Amusements, Including a Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with the Camera, edited by Walter Woodbury (The Scovill & Adams Co.: New York, 1896), later published by The Photographic Times Publishing Association.
13. Photography is so inextricably linked with portrait that Ben Maddow wrote a history of the medium, entitled Faces (New York, 1977), addressing this genre exclusively,
14. See John Stauffer’s "Daguerreotyping Portraits of Southworth and Hawes, 1843-1860," Prospects, An Annual of American Cultural Studies, vol. 22, 69-107.
15. Dancer’s work made possible objects referred to as "stanhopes," decorative or functional articles, especially souvenirs.
16. Henisch, The Photographic Experience, 140.
17. Ambrotypes are one-of-a-kind collodion negatives on glass that read as positives when they are backed with black velvet or when opaque black paint is applied to the obverse of th glass.
18. From the beginning photography provided unique opportunities for women, both as practitioners and artist-colorists.
19. The Pioneer Manufacturing Co.’s catalogue, included all sorts of paraphernalia, such as metal medallion backs, celluloid button machines, medallion frames, lockets, charms, cuff buttons, and more.
20. The earliest Kodak cameras came fully loaded with celluloid film containing 100 exposures. Once the film was exposed the photographer would return the camera to Kodak where the film was processed, 100 circular photographs were printed, and a fully reloaded camera was returned to the consumer.
21. See The Philadelphia Photogrpaher, no. 11, February 1878, unpaginated.
22. See The Philadelphia Photographer, no. 54, June 1868, unpaginated. These ornamental vases and urns are illustrated in the ad and were available "for the table and floor, $5.00 each." The reference to Reutlinger, Paris’s premier fashion hotographers, assured American consumers of their good taste.

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