Dating Fashions in Antique Photographs

These days, fashion collectors vie with image collectors, scooping up the best in antique and vintage photographs. Undoubtedly, photographs are one of the best pieces of evidence about what people really wore, second only to existing garments. (One could even argue they are better evidence than existing garments, since people generally preserved only their "best dress.") The weak link in photographic evidence, however, is the dating of the image.

Although some period photographs were dated by their photographer, this is fairly rare in 19th and 20th century portraiture. Those images that do have dates marked in pencil on the back may not be accurate; they are often added years later. It's certainly possible to date photographs solely by the fashions shown in them, comparing the images to those shown and described in fashion magazines. This presents a few problems, however. First, who's to know whether the fashion magazine was ahead of, or behind, the individual in the photograph? In the case of trend setters, the photograph may display fashions that actually predate any description in a magazine.

More commonly, people aren't always perfectly fashionable. Many people, depending upon their age, their location, or their personality, linger behind the fashions for months - even years. Also consider: When did the fashion die? Did, one day, it just go "poof?" Or is it more likely that it slowly petered out? And if the latter is the case, can we really know exactly when the style stopped being worn?

So, while it's useful to consider the fashions worn when trying to date photographs, a wise collector considers more. Start by looking at what type of photograph it is (a tintype? cabinet card? cartes-de-visite?). In fact, this is the easiest part of dating a photo and can provide you with a good general date of manufacture. For example, if the image is a daguerreotype (a photograph on a piece of glass, not to be confused with negatives, which may also be on glass), we know that most were made between 1839 and 1865 or so. If the photo is a stereo card (a piece of cardboard with two identical images on it), it's probably from c.1863 to 1920s. 

But don't stop there. Many details can still be gleaned, if you look at the photograph carefully. For example, although cartes-de-visite (small photographs - about the size of a business card - mounted on cardboard) were made from c.1859 through the 1910s, they often had printed borders of one or two lines, c. 1861 to 1869. Oval frames were mostly popular between 1864 and 1867. After 1875, the cardboard's edges might be beveled. A knowledge of such things has quite an impact on your accuracy in dating.

For more information about the various types of photographs used in the past and when they were produced, see Victorian Fashion in America.        

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