Measuring about 5" x 6", this heavily decorated and embossed leather bound photograph album contains 38 pages, plus the ornate title page. Each of the pages has a window for cartes de visite size photos (2" x 3-1/4"). So - if I've counted them correctly - of the 30 available slots, nine of them are empty, and of the remaining 29 slots, 13 have tintypes (two or three of them very tiny), and the other 16 are CDV's. Although the album was found in North Carolina, the photos seem to be from other areas, most notably upstate New York and Pennsylvania.

I've done my best to investigate the subjects of the photos and the original owner of the album, so let's start with the handwritten name on the front fly leaf, which is Miss Estelle Smith, presumably the name of the original owner. Then at the top of the title page are the handwritten names "Ella" and "Eve", along with the descriptive comment "Aunt Stella's Album." 

More handwritten captions are found on page four (photo of a girl identified as "Bessie Ricker" and page five (photo of a boy identified as "Harvey Ricker"). The only other handwriting on any of the pages are captions under empty slots where photos have been removed ("Albert" and "Johnny").

So then I turned to the photos themselves. As you know, the tintypes don't provide much evidence of either the subject or the photographer, but I've pulled out most of the CDV's in search of subject identification or studio backmarks. The only one with a handwritten caption is of a man identified as "Mr. Pery Rouse." The photographer's backmark on that one is Dolph Brothers, Erie, Pennsylvania. And the same photo is the only with a tax stamp (2 cents) on the back, indicating it was taken in the mid-1860's.  

The other photos offer no clues to the identity of the subjects, but, in addition to the Dolph Brothers, the following photographer backmarks appeared:

J. W. Upham, Jamestown, New York
Upson & Simson, Buffalo, New York
Bairstow Brothers, Parker's Landing, Pennsylvania
James O. A. Clary (location not given)
Latham, Bradford, Peensylvania
A. D. Deming, Oil City, Pennsylvania
"R. W. McFate's Photographic Rooms - L. Whittling, Photographer - Cochranton, Pennsylvania."
Willard Carriel, Cuba, New York


The album is in somewhat falling apart condition, with a major hinge crack between pages 24 and 25, but the binding otherwise still holding together well. The leather cover is worn around the edges and spine hinges, and one of the white ball "feet" is missing from the back. It has two brass clasps, which are present and working, but one of them is missing the applied decoration of a belt and buckle. And many of the pages have tears and chips around the photo pockets.

 

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