It always amazes me when I read some historian describe the Carte de Visite (CDV) as an ‘instant hit’ in the United States, after its 1854 invention by Disdéri of Paris. They must not have looked at any major CDV collections.
I have a collection of thousands of digital images of dated photographs, which provides a major component of my research into dating images. I went through and looked at each type of photograph, and counted up the frequencies and distribution by type. I’ll share a summary of that study below.
The Collection
First however, I need to point out some of the limitations of the data. Only a small portion of these images are from my own physical collection of photographs — the rest have been found online, at auction sites and through dealers, family and local history sites, etc. Some of them have dates written on them, others are dated by knowing the dates of birth for young children portrayed, and judging their ages when the photos were taken. Sometimes a photographer’s imprint or copyright notice provides the date. As a whole, the majority of dates appear to be sound — the date fits the style of image and mounting, etc. But I’m sure they are not 100% correct.
Moreover, there is a bias in the collection. Images from 1864-66 are grossly over-represented, because so many of them have dated tax stamps on them. Tintypes and cased images are grossly under-represented, because so few have dates written on them — those formats are just not as easy to write on as a card mounted image.
So take the following conclusions with a large grain of salt. I believe the trends are substantially correct, though the percentages are very approximate.
Remember too that these are images from the United States and Canada, the results would doubtlessly be different if the collection were European based. England, for example, had fewer daguerreotypes and more calotypes. The cabinet card and CDV formats seem to have remained popular longer in Europe than they did here. I have also seen ambrotypes from the 1890s from Britain, though none that late from this side of the Atlantic. I’m sure there are other differences I have not yet noticed as well.
The Data by Decade
1840s
Not surprisingly, 95% of the images from the 1840s were daguerreotypes. The rest were calotypes.
1850s
The 1850s saw the introduction of albumen prints, tintypes, and ambrotypes, as well as salt prints (resembling calotypes but made from glass plate negatives). But daguerreotypes are still 85% of our dated collection for that decade. Ambrotypes make up about 7%, and the other types make up the rest. We have no CDVs from the 1850s, though some American photographers had begun making them by the end of the decade.
1860s
The 1860s probably had the greatest diversity of photograph types, as photographers began to experiment with the various new formats discovered in the preceding decade. Still, it was the CDV that dominated the scene, with 80% of all our dated images being CDVs. Ambrotypes still made up just about 7% of the images, tintypes another 6%, and only 4% were daguerreotypes — and those mostly from very early in the decade. The cabinet card was said to be introduced about 1866, but we have none from the 1860s in the dated images.
1870s
Most of the cased images dropped out of the running, with only very few ambrotype and cased tintypes being seen. The CDV continued to dominate the market, with 80% of our dated images being CDVs. Tintypes grew to 10%, mostly in paper mats. Only 5% of our dated images from the 1870s are cabinet cards.
1880s
The cabinet card comes into domination in this decade, with 65% of all images in the database. CDVs still make up a strong 30%, but the distribution is strongly skewed toward the early years of the decade.
1890s
The cabinet card remains dominant in the 1890s, with 75% of our dated images from that decade. Another 15% are what I call matted images — photographs pasted to a board, but unlike the CDV and cabinet card, there is a wide margin around all sides of the image. Some of these matted images are cabinet-card sized, and so are often lumped in with them, but I believe they are sufficiently significant to deserve their own terminology. The decade also saw a wide variety of mount sizes, both for traditional card-mount styles (where the image is nearly at the edge of the card on three sides) and the newly popular matted formats. Note that matted photographs go back to the 1850s in the collection, but were never frequent enough to deserve mention before the 1890s.
1900s
The first decade of the 20th century saw matted photographs of various sizes dominate the scene, with 70% of all images from the decade. Another new format, the postcard, came into play with 12% of the images. About 7% of images were now left loose, unmounted. Cabinet cards fell to just 5% of our examples, and most for those from the first few years of the decade.
1910s
By the 1910s the photo postcard was all the rage, with 40% of our dated images being that format. The unmounted, snapshot style images grew to 30% of the total, and matted images — mostly the work of professional photographers — dropped to 25%.
1920s
By the roaring 20s almost every family had their own camera, and unmounted prints now dominate the collection at 70%. Matted images fall to 15% of the examples, and postcards just 7%.
1930s
With the 1930s the snapshot percentage continues to increase, with 80% of the images now unmounted. Matted images remain at 15%, representing the professional photographer’s share in the market. Photo postcards are only 4% of the collection for that decade.
1940s
With the 1940s the snapshot continues to dominate numerically, now with 90% of all the images for the decade. Just 7% of the 1940s photos were matted.
Conclusion
These are the broad trends for the first 110 years of photography in Northern North America (i.e. North of the Rio Grande). Within each trend are a variety of smaller sub-trends for variants and elements, that allow us to narrow the date of any particular photograph to a span of from one to five years, depending on the particulars. Exploring those variations and nuances is what the Identifying and Dating American Photographs section of the ClassyArts site is all about. That part of the site will go online soon, for paid subscribers only. Subscribe today and support this work, and also gain access to our huge database of photographers, growing archive of old images, and soon-to-be-added database of lesser-known artists.
