" Occupational Photographs ", Life Before The Looming War

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
fm.JPG

Firemen, as awesome 170 years ago as they are in 2017


" Occupational Photographs " are so numerous they must have been quite, quite popular. Wish they were now but guess it'd be tougher? I mean, ' Fireman ' , still have those and ' Seamstress ' you can dig up given enough time but say " A. I. Research Engineer ", try that. Or " Blogger ". There are a few hilarious possibilities considering 2017's range of occupations.

With some exceptions we can generally ascertain the line of work being represented. Remember the blood-letting fellow? That photo btw, either the original or a copy was on eBay for months.

I think of these frequently when reading of men massed for some imminent battle- where each came from, what job was left undone, what uniform or hat, cleaned and neatly stored in great hope, perhaps touched with loving, wistful hands during long months and years.

Always new ones to be found on Pinterest ( of course ), Ebay, NYPL, LoC and ( not as frequently ) our National Archives. Included women- who knows if any also folded a business and followed the drum's beat, to war, to war.



f melodeon.jpg

The instrument is a ' meldeon ', seems an early synthesizer.... ( that's a joke ). Given how many professional musicians there were in the era ( given the lack of television and computers ), it may be something she earned a living with, hired for events.

More, in next post.
 
f milliners.jpg

Mother and daughter milliners

blind man and reader.jpg

Reader and his client, a blind man

artist.jpg

Artist, assuming a professional given he has had his portrait done in this format.

bootmkr.jpg

Boot Maker

f guitar.jpg

Guitar musician

hat window maker 1850 1860.jpg

I think he is a painter although listed as ' window maker '. That is a shutter and he is holding an old painter's brish. With a bucket.

hypno.jpg

Hypnotist, pretty cool!

inventr.jpg

Inventor- love these. JPK's nephew was an inventor who had a steam engine in patent.Early machines are awesome.

med.jpg

Surely a medical student, teacher or doctor?

occ botanist.jpg

Botanist, also very cool

occ gold miner.jpg

Gold miner, and that is an astonishingly large find!

occ newspaper editor.jpg

He is listed as newspaper editor, perhaps the scissors is a big clue?

occ rr workers.jpg

Rail Road workers

ox drovers.JPG

Drovers, but looking at this, not sure it's from our country.

typesett.jpg

Typesetter
 
Can somebody point out to me what he's doing, specifically? Like, what's in this hands, especially that black shape? And what are those striped things to the right? I see a last on the table that looks different from a shoemaker's last but I assume that's because it's for boots, but after that, I'm lost. This photograph shows me I know nothing about making boots.
View attachment 120027
Inventor- love these. JPK's nephew was an inventor who had a steam engine in patent.Early machines are awesome.

View attachment 120033
Rail Road workers

I see a flywheel, a governor, presumably a smokestack and a boiler. Does the "smokestack" vent off any excess steam not necessary for the engine at the time? I'm assuming this is a steam engine. Maybe I'm wrong, but it certainly gets some motion going with that big flywheel spinning around, keeping the inertia going. The railroad workers need to get together with the inventors. Pfut pfut pfut pfutapfuta pfutapfutapfuta "engage the engine!" and zoom down the tracks.

View attachment 120034
Drovers, but looking at this, not sure it's from our country.

They're wearing smocks. Is that what makes them look foreign? Unusual, and I think a carryover from the British Isles and/or Europe, but still could be US for some old fashioned drovers. <---- By the way, is that the right word for someone driving a team of oxen? I would have thought a teamster drove a team like these two, whether hitched-up oxen, horses or mules, and a drover drove a loose herd of animals, like a couple drovers on horseback with a couple cattle dogs would drive a herd of cattle along a road to market. Or they'd drive a herd of hogs, or sheep, or turkeys down the road, though that was fading as railroads came in. But now I'm not sure. They're driving oxen with voice commands and whips, like you always do, unlike the rein and bit of a horse or mule... :help:
 
Bumping this for the milliner photo- have been more an more convinced women had recourse to scrambling for work during those years. It's a little tough finding enough information on the low wage jobs, like mill workers a lot would have had to take on.

With men away and their wages sometimes sporadically reaching home or ceasing all together, it must have been a scramble, making ends meet.

'Nurse' would not have been an at-home job, while the topic is here, which was surprising before reading of medical care? Dix did that officially, bulldozing over men in order to provide care although women just, plain showed up for the job. According to the arguments raging in newspapers at the time, male nurses were the accepted norm. Huh.

occ loom.jpg

Guessing she was a mill worker, not ' just ' someone who worked her own loom at home.

seamstresses.jpg

Demorests advocated women going into business for themselves and also employed them. It may seem a little self serving since they promoted their own machines so aggressively but no one else at the time was coming up with ideas for women with little education. She also paid women of all races equal wages- a little unheard of.
 
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