The Photographic Crayon Portrait
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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CRAYON PORTRAIT: NINETEENTH-CENTURY ICONS OF ABSENT FAMILY MEMBERS AND PRESENT-DAY RELICS OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS by DiAnne Iverglynne A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Boise State University April 6, 2006 2006 DiAnne Elizabeth Iverglynne ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The thesis presented by DiAnne Iverglynne entitled The Photographic Crayon Portrait: Nineteenth-Century Icons of Absent Family Members and Present-day Relics of Latter-day Saints is hereby approved: __________________________________________________ Dr. Barton Barbour Date Advisor __________________________________________________ Dr. Sandra Schackel Date Committee Member __________________________________________________ Dr. Todd Shallat Date Committee Member __________________________________________________ Dr. John R. Pelton Date Dean, Graduate College For Mom Doris Jean DuMond (July17, 1930 - July 9, 1994) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project simply could not have happened without the enthusiastic support of my close friends and family. I wish to thank them all: Ned Swisher for allowing me to run electricity to my van on the coldest nights. Bonnie Frazier-Shewmaker tirelessly checked in with me to see if I needed assistance or nutrition. My daughter, Jennifer Choquette, and her boyfriend Eric Morrison, have assisted me in countless ways, especially in the library. Lillian Pittman, helped me maintain center. Jill Joseph volunteered her great typing skills in transposing text from references. Chase Hills provided great encouragement and a camper trailer. My friends are wonderful. Candace Akins, senior manuscripts editor at Cornell University Press, has traveled with me studying photographic crayons, and has been an adopted sister of mine for over twenty years. Knowing that she has been anxious for me to, “just finish already!” has been a real boon in bringing this thesis to fruition. She plans to help develop the thesis into a manuscript to submit to a press. Beyond these dear friends, I have had tremendous support from my committee: Dr. Barton Barbour, committee chair, gave me time when he had few moments for himself. All of his advice initiated a process within me that resulted in a better project. Our readings and conferences provided the understanding of the development and human concerns of the Intermountain West. Understanding where I needed to be, more than I did, he allowed me none-the-less some wonderful time following Cabeza de Vaca across i the continent (no doubt wondering if I’d ever even get to overland freighting at my initial pace!). Thank you Dr. B! Dr. Todd Shallat encouraged me during those times of fright we all have where putting our thoughts in publication is concerned. He is one of the most positive and uplifting professors I have known. With him on my committee, I could always sense somebody in my corner. Todd is interesting and fun. My experience at BSU is much richer for having studied under him. Dr. Sandra Schackel has graciously joined my committee though her work schedule is enormous. Her friendly encouragement and help in my moving forward will always be remembered. Dr. Nick Schackel has the rare gift of being both a scholar and a genuinely warm spirit. Dr Miller, director of graduate studies in history at Boise State University, has allowed my artistic background some room to exhibit itself as “quirky” while I am growing as a historian. Dr Joanne Klein has tirelessly worked toward the advancement of my progress both in the program and specifically with help with my this thesis. Thank you all. Your professional qualities and hard work are greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank the friendly and helpful staff members of Boise State University History Department, and the Albertson Library—especially the Interlibrary Loan staff. Lastly, thank you all who offered interviews: Grant Romer from the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film; Fay Cottle, Director of the Oneida Pioneer Museum; Mary Johnson, President of The Daughters Utah Pioneers Museum, and her staff members; Bill Slaughter, Archivist for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) History Department and Museum; and various other members of the LDS church who freely offered their time and sentiments. ii ABSTRACT . The growth of ten thousand things prevents their dying out. ~ Lau Tsu Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons, relate to photographic crayon portraits of ancestors and pioneers as iconologic figures of their religious heritage. This relationship to the portraits is a material extension of ancestral reverence, for which Mormons are well known. Within Mormon folk culture, these portraits have become a metonymic construct; meaning that metaphors and qualifiers to metaphors are experienced with an emotional attachment that is pervasive in, and directly linked to, cultural values. Because of this, these portraits represent an American form of religious iconology, and qualify as holy relics in Mormon museums, such as the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yet, much information regarding the role of the photographic crayon portrait in nineteenth-century history of photography has been obscured, or passed over. Therefore, to understand the role of these portraits within Mormon folk culture and collectivism requires some interpretation of the photographic crayons’ role among non-Mormon Americans of the nineteenth century—this thesis will serve to just begin the task. The photographic crayon portrait is absent from the canon of the history of photography. However, considering the photographic crayon portrait to be an unimportant player in the history of photography, or any other history of American folk culture is a grievous oversight. Why not celebrate the first Americana expression in formal portraiture? The photographic crayon portrait graced the walls of common people and their neighbors from the mid-1860s through the Great Depression. A broader appreciation of the overall class and culture indications regarding photographic crayon portraiture in nineteenth-century America, will facilitate an understanding of how those indications are extended in the religious iconology the portraits represent in Mormon folk culture. This introduction to the photographic crayon portrait will serve historians who interpret Mormon collectivism within the broader American experience, and historians who examine class and culture issues in America during the Victorian era. In addition, This study will facilitate scholarship regarding frozen historical metaphors represented by the photographic crayon portraits throughout literature and theater at the turn of the twentieth century. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i ABSTRACT iii Independent Quotes v Illustrations vi Photographs vii INTRODUCTION ix Terminology xviii I: CRAYON PORTRAITURE AND THE “PHOTO-PORTRAIT” 2 The Photographic Sketch 5 Concluding Chapter I 15 II: CULTURAL RESPONSE AND IMPLICATIONS 17 Artists and Photographers: Drawing the Class Lines 18 Laborers and Pioneers: Class and Consumer: Viewed in Metaphor, Innuendo, Sarcasm and Snobbery 22 Concluding Chapter II 53 III: MORMON FOLK CULTURE ICONOLOGY 55 IV: CONCLUSION 68 SOURCES 74 SOURCES CONSULTED BUT NOT CITED 81 APPENDIX 83 GLOSSARY 88 iv INDEPENDENT QUOTES Page iii Lau Tsu. Source: Feng, Gia-fu and Jane English, trans. Tao Te Ching. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, 1972. Page 78. 1 Nietzche. Source: Edgar, Andrew and Peter Sedgwick. Cultural Theory: The Key Thinkers, London and New York: Routledge, a Taylor & Francis Group, 2002. Page 166. 1 Gombrich. Source: Sachko Macleod, Dianne. Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Page 63. 22 J.A. Barhydt. Source: Barhydt, J.A. Crayon Portraiture: Complete Instructions for Making Crayon Portraits on Crayon Paper and on Platinum, Silver and Bromide Enlargements: and Directions for the Use of Transparent Liquid Water Colors: and for Making French Crystals, Revised and enlarged edition. New York: The Baker & Taylor CO., 1890. Page15. v ILLUSTRATIONS Page x Henry Fox Talbot, from an original stereograph. Woodcut engraving on the right side. William Crawford, Keepers of the Light, p.17, figure 13. (See also photographs page v.) 2 Rubens, Peter Paul, Portrait of Isabella Brant, 1626. Black and red chalk, heightened with white, reinforced with pen and brush, 381x292 mm. British Museum, London. Burchard-d’Hulst 135. 8 An advertisement for Woodward's Solar Cameras from the 1878 book How to Paint Photographs, showing a medal awarded at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. Courtesy Wilgus collection. 19 Crayon Portraits of Richard Hildreth and Ralph Waldo Emerson. For Hildreth see “Notable American Unitarians: 1740-1900,” Harvard Square Library Unitarianism in America Online. http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/UIA%20Online/index.html. Samuel W. Rowse, who is highly spoken of in the letters of Charles Eliot Norton, drew Emerson’s image. See also William Roscoe Thayer, ed., Letters of John Holmes to James Russell Lowell and Others,1917. p.98. 22 Advertisement: “The Vacant Chair.” The Chicago Tribune. 3 January, 1869. vi PHOTOGRAPHS Page Cover Mary L. Solomon, 1895. Courtesy of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah. Photographed by the author, July 28, 2005. x Henry Fox Talbot, from an original stereograph. (Left side.) William