Garden Variety White Supremacy in the Nineteenth Century

Cora L. V. Hatch

It's common knowledge that modern racism in the United States comes from the forced enslavement of millions of Africans who were stolen from their homes and brought to a place that was totally unfamiliar, only to work long hours for no compensation, and to cope with the social and cultural implications of it. The rationalization of this monstrous institution was twofold: 1) They were human, but subhuman and therefore goods for

Manual labor only, and 2) Bringing them to the new world introduced them to Christianity. It is also known (by anyone who actually pays attention) that racism existed and continues to exist across our country. 

The undercurrent of racism, I believe, was (and is) a belief that white Americans often feel they are superior to people of color, and they are blind to the privilege that this gives them.

White Americans are made very uncomfortable by this assertion, and will often say that they do not have special privilege. What they don't understand is that it isn't just a matter of economics, but of opportunity. And protection. For example: as a white American man I do not have to fear for my life if I am stopped by police. Black Americans do. Every. Single. Time. That's privilege, or the lack thereof.

In the nineteenth century the undercurrent of white supremacy was out in the open and was agreed upon by many white Americans.  The general belief was that Americans of Northern European descent were superior in terms of intelligence, culture, and physical appearance. The pseudo-science of Phrenology was hitched to the wagon of white supremacy in the 1840's and 50's and used as evidence of this belief.

Oddly, Spiritualism factored into this as well. Spiritualism was the belief that people who placed themselves in an attitude of receptiveness could communicate with the dead. Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the US President by the same last name, regularly held seances to attempt to talk to her two deceased sons. Abraham Lincoln went along but generally appears to have been less than convinced of its genuineness.

One Spiritualist author, Cora L.V. Hatch, toured across New England in the mid-late 1850's promoting her craft with the aid of a medium. She felt that phrenology was a way to establish who was closest to God in general terms, and that of course meant New England natives of Anglo-Saxon background.

You didn't see that coming, did you?

I offer a couple of excerpts from a lecture on phrenology that express this view:

But in all those qualities which make the human an embodiment of the divine, the Anglo-Saxon comes next in the scale; and we may venture to say, without egotism or flattery, that the Anglo-Saxon race is the most perfect, phrenologically and anatomically, which exists upon the globe; not that Anglo-Saxon which exists under monarchical governments, which is ground down by the heel of despotism, but that which is manifested in New England, in free America--free, except as you bind yourselves in party politics--which is manifested throughout your whole country, springing up as the embodiment of science, religion, and virtue, which you see all around you, varied in manifestation, but perfect in its results.....the American, the Anglo-Saxon, is more spiritual, more intellectual, more perfect as regards the whole. (Cora L.V. Hatch, Discourses on Religion, Morals, Philosophy, and Metaphysics ( New York, 1858), p. 117

The Irish have strong social and religious powers, quick of wit, but enfeebled in judgment; they are to the world what the blacks are to the southern states of America. But the American brain is distinct and positive in its characteristics; and an American can never be mistaken for any other nationality on the face of the earth. Those who live in free America--free as far as theory is concerned; those whose political and religious lives are free--except bound by party spirit--become the true types of material phrenological development...(p. 119)

"The Irish....are to the world what the blacks are to the southern states of America." Wow. As in, good for manual labor and nothing else? And this, less than a decade after the Potato Famine that killed millions of Irish and brought them to our shores?

It's important to remember that the tensions over immigrants from Ireland and Germany caused Protestant Americans (so they claimed) to fear for their jobs. Sound familiar? The Know Nothing Party, officially the American Party, sought to restrict immigration by instituting a 21 year residency requirement prior to citizenship, and keeping the foreign born and Catholics from becoming involved in politics. Fortunately the party disappeared by 1860, but the undercurrent remained, coming to the surface periodically as with today's politics.

This may seem like a digression but it isn't. So, let's take a very brief look at Phrenology.

For those not familiar with Phrenology, it was a pseudo science that developed in Germany. The basic idea was that the contours of a person's skull would indicate important factors in their intellect and personality.  Porcelain heads with the different areas lined out showed practitioners what to look for and where. Reproductions are readily available. I have one as a curiosity. In this system, a larger section in a particular area could indicate a higher intellect or greater sensitivity to differing factors in society. This "science" is now universally recognized as a fake science, relegated to the same dustbin of history that holds eugenics. But at the time it was considered a valid way of looking at the human mind. And it quickly became a tool to generate “scientific” evidence to support the belief that people of Northern European descent were superior to others. 

This new layer of racist justification was laid over the general belief that Africans and their descendants were culturally and spiritually inferior, and enslavement and exposure to Christianity and civilization was a benefit to them. Now there was a way to prove this with scientific theory. By the 1850’s plates with profiles of people from different parts of the world appeared in books and periodicals to demonstrate that people who had sloping foreheads and other undesirable traits (that were not northern European) were less intelligent. This is the forerunner of eugenics.

 

Bear in mind that these categories were not just used for people of African descent. They were used to categorize people of all racial backgrounds. The common denominator was that they were from low circumstances.

 

What I'm describing here is the common form of racism that didn't involve burning crosses. and wearing white robes with pointed hoods. This sort of racism was in the groundwater. You could easily argue that it still is. But this sort of racism was so prevalent because it wasn't as overt. This was the racism of the northern United States, which is more difficult to weed out because the roots are so deep. This was the racism that helped white New Englanders rationalize owning a slave or two in the colonial period and early Republic. They rationalize that they treated them well. What is lost, of course, is it was still involuntary servitude.

This was also the racism held among a good number of abolitionists, although not universally. It was a good thing to fight for the freedom of the enslaved, they argued, even if the enslaved were not their equals. Many in the North during the Civil War either objected to the war becoming an attempt to end slavery, because they saw restoring the Union as more important. Even Abraham Lincoln did not see African Americans as equal to people of European descent. This did not compromise his hatred of slavery and the injustice of it, but it did nuance it to a great extent.

The assumption that some make today is that once slavery ended (although it continued in all but name under sharecropping) there was no more need for concern about racism. The United States has gone through successive waves of movements toward and away from racism. The rest of the nineteenth century was a long, unified period of discrimination and terrorism against black Americans through lynching, Jim Crow, and other forms of domestic terrorism.

 

We still bear the scars of racism in our public institutions. There isn't enough space to go into detail, but the racial profiling that officially happens (not officially) plagues inner cities.

So, here we are. Our present situation under the current administration (regime) is to roll back the rights gained at so high a price, such as the right to vote. The recent gutting of the Voting Act of 1965 is evidence enough of that.

It's hard to say what the solution is. I'm not an expert. But I can at least acknowledge that racism still exists and will continue to exist as long as wealthy white Americans exert the vast privilege at the cost of others.

We’ve Been Robbed

Today I am feeling robbed. Not as in our house being burglarized or something of that sort. In terms of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up on July 4. Let me explain.  It will take a couple of minutes. Or four centuries. 

Except for some recent Irish ancestors (gr grandparents and 3 gr grandparents on different sides), and my immigrant Cowing ancestor (who was sold as an indentured servant in Massachusetts in the early 1650’s after being taken prisoner during the English Civil War), most of my family has been here since the Great Migration (1620-40) in which about 20,000 people came from England looking for a better opportunity. Before I go any further, yes, I am aware, of course, that there were people here already, and they were systematically killed or displaced. Some of my ancestors actively participated in that and I regret it although I can’t change it. 

My brothers and I are descendants of twenty one Mayflower passengers, a number of whom died in their first winter here. Luck of the draw. Many of our ancestors  lived in eastern Massachusetts. Scratch long enough and you’ll find a Mayflower person. 

I can just about field a baseball team with my Revolutionary War veteran ancestors. Not to brag, which I’m not. It’s a fact. Most came back home but not all. One that didn’t was Robert Munro, the 63 year old ensign of the Lexington Militia. He died on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775. 

I grew up knowing that I had ancestors in the war, including two whose last names I bear as my middle and last names. But my parents always told us that we should never boast about ancestors because we didn’t do anything to inherit them. It just happened. 

I don’t want to differentiate between myself and someone who came here from a different place and went through the citizenship process very recently. I’m no more an American than they are. We’ve just been here longer. All of my earliest American ancestors came from somewhere else too. 

So the anniversary feels personal to me. I know it does to others too, such as to those recently granted citizenship. I applaud them. It’s for them too. My personal connection is different, not better. 

So, feeling robbed? We have a senile man child in the White House who sees his role as President to be making a spectacle of himself and lining his pockets and those of his friends. He has no idea what this anniversary means. For him it’s an opportunity to build some cheesy wrestling arena on the White House grounds and celebrate his birthday with a gaudy spectacle that will, no doubt, be played to a half filled Today I am feeling robbed. Not as in our house being burglarized or something of that sort. In terms of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up on July 4. Let me explain.  It will take a couple of minutes. Or four centuries. 

Except for some recent Irish ancestors (gr grandparents and 3 gr grandparents on different sides), and my immigrant Cowing ancestor (who was sold as an indentured servant in Massachusetts in the early 1650’s after being taken prisoner during the English Civil War), most of my family has been here since the Great Migration (1620-40) in which about 20,000 people came from England looking for a better opportunity. Before I go any further, yes, I am aware, of course, that there were people here already, and they were systematically killed or displaced. Some of my ancestors actively participated in that and I regret it although I can’t change it. 

My brothers and I are descendants of twenty one Mayflower passengers, a number of whom died in their first winter here. Luck of the draw. Many of our ancestors  lived in eastern Massachusetts. Scratch long enough and you’ll find a Mayflower person. 

I can just about field a baseball team with my Revolutionary War veteran ancestors. Not to brag, which I’m not. It’s a fact. Most came back home but not all. One that didn’t was Robert Munro, the 63 year old ensign of the Lexington Militia. He died on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775. 

I grew up knowing that I had ancestors in the war, including two whose last names I bear as my middle and last names. But my parents always told us that we should never boast about ancestors because we didn’t do anything to inherit them. It just happened. 

I don’t want to differentiate between myself and someone who came here from a different place and went through the citizenship process very recently. I’m no more an American than they are. We’ve just been here longer. All of my earliest American ancestors came from somewhere else too. 

So the anniversary feels personal to me. I know it does to others too, such as to those recently granted citizenship. I applaud them. It’s for them too. My personal connection is different, not better. 

So, feeling robbed? We have a senile man child in the White House who sees his role as President to be making a spectacle of himself and lining his pockets and those of his friends. He has no idea what this anniversary means. For him it’s an opportunity to build some cheesy wrestling arena on the White House grounds and celebrate his birthday with a gaudy spectacle that will, no doubt, be played to a half filled arena. 

We have a President who appears to be semi literate at best, whose favorite bedtime reading could very well be last month’s profit and loss statement. He is the most unpopular and least trusted president the country has had, because he is incompetent. And he is building himself a fortified bunker beneath the ruins of the East Wing of the White House to comfort himself in his paranoia. 

The President has robbed this country of the opportunity to collectively take a look at who we are and decide what we can do better. There is a glimmer of this in Ken Burns’ American Revolution film. But that’s only a start. What can we do better so that marginalized people in our country aren’t so marginalized, and those who weren’t born here are seen as just as valuable as someone like me who was. We have been denied that opportunity. Robbed by a pathetic old rich man and his cronies who cling to him not because they respect him but what they hope to gain through association with him. These are people who would slit his throat and dump him in the nearest ditch in a heartbeat if it served their purposes. The sad part of that is he thinks they all love and adore him.

So there we are. What will I do on July 4? I don’t know. Maybe drive up to Lexington Green. We haven’t talked about it yet.

We have a President who appears to be semi literate at best, whose favorite bedtime reading could very well be last month’s profit and loss statement. He is the most unpopular and least trusted president the country has had, because he is incompetent. And he is building himself a fortified bunker beneath the ruins of the East Wing of the White House to comfort himself in his paranoia. 

The President has robbed this country of the opportunity to collectively take a look at who we are and decide what we can do better. There is a glimmer of this in Ken Burns’ American Revolution film. But that’s only a start. What can we do better so that marginalized people in our country aren’t so marginalized, and those who weren’t born here are seen as just as valuable as someone like me who was. We have been denied that opportunity. Robbed by a pathetic old rich man and his cronies who cling to him not because they respect him but what they hope to gain through association with him. These are people who would slit his throat and dump him in the nearest ditch in a heartbeat if it served their purposes. The sad part of that is he thinks they all love and adore him. 

So there we are. What will I do on July 4? I don’t know. Maybe drive up to Lexington Green. We haven’t talked about it yet.

The War Prayer: The Spanish American War and Mark Twain

An 1896 Spanish cartoon criticizing the U.S.

(Wikipedia)

 

In his 1902 short story, "The War Prayer," Mark Twain does not hold back. Criticizing the recent Spanish American War, a war many saw as a act of naked aggression, Twain set the scene in a large patriotic/religious rally in which a pastor is about to deliver a prayer. I quote the second part of the story here in full, beginning when the stranger appears and approaches the podium.

I offer this to counter the current administration's blood lust in the war with Iran. It is naked aggression and will probably result in what will qualify as war crimes, if it hasn't already. The administration's delight in the killing of innocent civilians and the rampant destruction borders on insanity.

So, I offer Mark Twain's perspective on such warfare. He did not allow this essay to be published during his lifetime because, as he said, "only dead men can tell the truth."

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,"Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!" 

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said "I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import-that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of-except he pause and think. "God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this-keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. "You have heard your servant's prayer-the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it-that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory-must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! 

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. 

 (After a pause) 

 "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits." 

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said. 

 The full story can be found here: 

https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/the-war-prayer

Copying the New Testament by Hand in Greek!

Got them at B&N!

 A number of years ago I embarked on a project that went the way of many of my projects, going strong for awhile then allowing it to lapse. Now that I'm retired and have more time I have decided to pick it up again. Hey, it’s Lent!! The project is writing out the entire New Testament in Greek in the style of early papyrus manuscripts. Last time I got as far as Mark 13:10. I did a couple of verses today and will do more tomorrow.

Part of my motivation was to see how long it would take me to write a page. I am using journal type books that are a perfect copy of early manuscript in their original form. I have found that it takes fifteen to twenty minutes a page. I still have a long way to go. I'm still in the first volume, which has four thick signatures. Matthew took up one half of the book so Mark will definitely fit. I haven't decided what to do with the leftover pages yet. It isn't a huge problem.

I have learned a lot about what the scribes experienced. And, I cheat a bit. I started off using a fountain pen but found that both tedious and expensive. Of course, the scribes would have too, but it wasn't that important. I am currently using a fine point Sharpie. The ink doesn't bleed through so that's good. I have also found first hand how errors were easily introduced into manuscripts. It's in looking back and forth from the page that is being copied and the new copy. If the same word appears in two lines in a row on the page that is being copied it is easy for the eye to slip down to the second one, thereby leaving out a phrase. The same thing can happen within a single line. It is also easy to misspell a word if I memorize the whole word and don't look back while I'm writing it. So what it comes down to is that I'm just as human as the scribes who did this for a living 1700 years ago. I have correction tape just in case. It doesn't happen a lot but it does happen some.

Fortunately this isn't a project with a timeline. It will be meditative to return to this project, and will be a good way to refresh my Koine Greek.

Genealogy Hunt

Eleanor Cole Cowing, ca. 1880

Job Cowing, ca. 1880

 My original Cowing ancestor was taken prisoner at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651. Many were shipped to Massachusetts and sold as indentured servants, including John Cowin. Generations later his descendants still lived in eastern Massachusetts, as they do now. Some got the itch to move. Gathelus Cowing moved with his brother to Chesterfield, Massachusetts after serving in the Revolutionary War. His grandson Job (my gr gr grandfather), born in 1820, moved around quite a bit. While working as a lumberman in the area of Orange County in southern New York he met and married his wife, Eleanor Cole.

Eleanor has been a mystery to me for decades. Years ago I discovered that given the area she was from, it was likely that she was of Dutch descent.  Members of the Kool family began to spell their name in an English manner. Orange County as well as Ulster County had many settlers that moved out of New York City. I remember having repeated disagreements with my father about this. He didn't believe that she was Dutch. You have to understand that in New England tradition the Dutch were seen as money grubbers. As if the early colonists in New England weren't. To admit that you were descended from Dutch ancestors, for some, could be the same as admitting that you were descended from pirates.

So, on I went. Periodically I would do another search and see if anything came up. I decided a couple of years ago to look at the census returns for Minisink and Deer Park--not a digital search but an actual scan of every page of the returns. In the 1825 return I found a Sarah Cole in Minisink with a girl in the household under the age of five. Hm. At that time it was quite rare for a single woman to be the head of household. Maybe she was a widow? I looked through the rest of the return and nearby found a Benjamin Cole and his wife. Hm. Could they be related? I searched birth records and sure enough Benjamin and his wife had a daughter Sarah born in 1789. Just the right age to have a child. Now, I potentially had Eleanor's mother. I started searching for Sarah Cole. No marriage records which meant Cole was not her married name but her family of origin. Single woman with a young child living in the same town with her parents? I did the math. The most likely explanation was that Sarah was a single unmarried mother who had her child outside of marriage. That explained a lot--no marriage record, no birth or baptismal record for Eleanor, no trace of Eleanor's origin.

What of Eleanor's father? There is absolutely no clue. No name, no record, no nothing. Several possibilities occur to me:

1) Rape (not a pleasant prospect to consider)

2) A consensual relationship, in which the father may have either been married already or would be socially embarrassed by having fathered a child out of wedlock.

3) Incest ( also not a pleasant possibility)

That's about it. I have not been able to find court records yet that might document a paternity lawsuit. My gut feeling is that I'll never know. Her father's identity will most likely be shrouded forever.

The genetic confirmation between Benjamin and Eleanor now confirmed, I could look for any trace of Sarah. Nothing. She doesn't appear anywhere in the 1830 Federal or 1835 New York census. The first possibility is that she had died. Or, somehow she had slipped past a census taker's attention. Or, she may have gone by another name. Regardless, she vanished.

With Benjamin's identity confirmed I was able to trace his ancestry back to 17th century Manhattan before it was taken over by the English. Also there are some French Huegenots from the Kingston, New Paltz area. Pretty interesting.

But it remains that I don't know who this particular gr gr gr grandfather is, and that disappoints me. That's the pitfal of many a genealogical search. Sometimes people disappear, intentionally or not. So he's a ghost, hiding from his descendants.

But there is still a happy ending.

When she was about 25 Eleanor met Job Cowing and they were married in 1845. Together they moved around a bit, spending time in Vermont before settling in Suffield, Connecticut, where they died. They raised a number of children, one of whom, Walter, was my gr. grandfather.

At the time a child born out of wedlock would have faced an uphill climb in the world. It's not surprising that there is no birth or baptismal record. Somehow she managed to grow up, whether in the care of her mother or another relative, and find stability as an adult.

I'm proud of the struggles that she overcame. And, I'm proud of my gr gr grandfather, who didn't care about Eleanor's background but married her for who she was. For the 19th century, that's as good as it could get.

The only oral history I have concerning them was from my gr. aunt Bertha, my grandfather's sister, who remembered them. She said that Job was a rather short man, and a happy person. If that's the only thing anyone can remember about him he's pretty lucky.

Along with my promise to my father to find his Gr gr grandfather Partrick Lewis (see The Empty Chair series) finding out Eleanor’s background was the other genealogical thing I promised him I would do.  It only took about forty years but it was worth it. The only remaining thing with that is finding her father but that will most likely remain a mystery until we know as we are known, as the old hymn says.

 

Postscript: Job is the reason I have a long white beard!

 

The Impact of Photography in the 1840's

 

 

 

Daguerreotype, ca. 1847. My collection

 Sometime in the later 1840's a young man walked past a daguerreotype studio in his town or city. Like most men at that time he wore a suit and tie of the time. He also wore a fancy and colorful vest, typical of the time, that offered a contrast to his dark jacket. He stepped in, plunked down his $2 and waited his turn, looking at the examples of the daguerreotypist's work on display. When his turn came he sat down and the daguerreotypist told him to stay motionless and not blink until he said he could move. It might have seemed an eternity but he got through it. His serious expression revealed his uncertainty about what the picture would be like. He had seen his own reflection in a mirror many times, but once he turned away the reflection was gone. Now he had a permanent mirror reflection. 

The question that came to mind immediately for those who considered the implications of a photographic image was whether the daguerreotype could capture not only the physical appearance of a person but the inner, true person as well. Today, we know instinctively that a photograph can point toward the inner person without capturing them completely, but it was an open question initially. 

We don't know what he did with the picture. Perhaps he gave it to his parents before moving away to the big city to take on a job. Perhaps it was a gift for his fiance or young wife. We don't know. What we do know is that in those early years of photography in America he became one of countless Americans who partook of this hugely popular phenomenon. 

The daguerreotype was introduced in 1839 by Louis Daguerre in France, and quickly caught on in the United States. Daguerreotype studios began popping up in American cities in early 1840. Early daguerreotypes are easy to spot because of their sparse and sometimes stark character. The sitter often has the classic deer in the headlight look about him/her, as though they don’t know what to expect.  It’s the encounter with a new technology that they don’t understand.

Prior to Daguerre's invention a family with means could commission a portrait, perhaps a miniature of a loved one to remember them by if they were away from home, or had died. There would always be an element of the painter flattering the sitter by making adjustments to improve the face. This couldn't be done with a daguerreotype, though. It was warts and all or nothing at all.

Initially, the daguerreotype process was seen primarily as a way to preserve images of architecture, and artifacts of antiquity such as hieroglyphic inscriptions. Newspaper editorials waxed philosophic about it:

     The Daguerreotype is destined to high purposes. It is one of the most brilliant discoveries the mind of man has ever conceived and compassed. That light should be its own historian and draftsman, is indeed a sublime conception. Its perfection is unapproachable by human hand, and its truth raises it high above all language, painting or poetry. It is the firs universal language, addressing itself to all who possess vision, and in characters alike understood in the courts of civilization and the hut of the savage.

Charleston (SC) Courier
Friday, Jan 17, 1840 

By the author's description, would the definition of civilization be the ability to see oneself accurately, as in a mirror? There's a lot to unpack here.

The (New York) Evening Post, Jan 31, 1840

Initially, several lecturers toured parts of the United States to display the results of the seemingly miraculous process. The busiest of these was a Francois Gouraud, an student of Daguerre. Gouraud planned to tour the major cities on the East Coast in the fall and winter of 1839 lecturing on the daguerreotype process and displaying examples of the art that depicted landscape scenes and famous buildings. He appears to have only made it to New York and Boston, though, where his demonstrations were attended by overflowing crowds.

Daguerreotype ca. 1843-47. My collection

What captivated people as they encountered this form of imagery for the first time was the ability to capture an image in a short time. Originally it took several minutes for the image to be captured, which may explain the initial rhapsodizing about architectural views and landscapes, but gradually that was worked down to anywhere from five to twenty seconds. The shortened exposure time led to the early adaptation to portrait photography. Even with shorter exposure times blurry images could be a challenge. The image below from the early 1840's demonstrates this. Note the blurry image of the baby's face, indicating that he/she was wriggling. Nothing has changed there!

People at the time had no way to adequately describe this new technology:

It is a modern invention of art to catch the intangible image of the human countenance, and preserve it in the form of a perfect likeness. The subject pauses a moment as he passes, and when he looks again, he beholds the beautiful miniature.

The Religious Herald, Hartford, CT

Saturday, Mar 21, 1846

Grant Wood, "American Gothic," Art Institute of Chicago (Wikipedia)

The idea that having one's photograph taken must mean putting on a stern, expressionless face endured for some time. Perhaps the equivalent of today’s driver’s license photo. This standardized view of posing for a photograph lasted for a very long time, well past the era of the daguerreotype, which ended for all practical purposes around 1860 as more affordable options appeared. In effect, people didn't have the stern appearance because they had to because of long exposure time. That actually wasn't very true. It was more likely because having a photograph taken was not the casual thing it is now, but was a formal event, and a serious expression seemed more appropriate. It is generally accepted that Grant Wood modeled his painting, "American Gothic," on this general way of posing for a photograph, what an 1859 writer called the "cold, somber daguerreotype expression." (The Ladies' repository, Volume 19:8, Aug 1859) The expressions on the faces of the man and woman below exemplify this formal attitude. This couple caught my attention because of their resemblance to American Gothic, and their serious expressions give the impression that they were waiting to be put to death.

ca. 1847 daguerreotype, my collection

Facial expressions aside, Americans quickly realized the novelty of this new invention. The idea of having an actual image of oneself or of a friend or loved one was important. Daguerreotypes were expensive, though, the equivalent of at least $40, so they were not taken very often by many. 

An 1852 poem, "The Gold Hunter and the Daguerreotype," written in the sentimental style of the time, was about a prospector who had left his family back east to make his fortune prospecting for gold in California. He had been gone for a year and missed his family. As he sits wistfully, thinking of his wife and family, someone delivers a small package to him that contains a daguerreotype of his children, sent from home:

A stranger greets him a moment, and leaves

A package, for his hand 

Eager he breaks the seal, as he sees

It comes from his native land.

A small clasped case-he touches a spring

When, like the light of a star,

Two sweet faces look up into his,

Laughing out, "Here we are, Pa."

The Pacific, Oct 22, 1852  

Daguerreotype, ca. 1847, my collection

Memory soon became a prominent motivation for people to have their photograph made. The young man pictured above probably went on and had his picture taken a number of times in his lifetime, with new and easier, more affordable technologies available. A particular sub-genre of daguerreotypes, though, reveals an older generation of Americans. Daguerreotypes of elderly women are very common, pointing toward their importance to families. This image dates from around 1847. It's safe to guess that the woman it portrays was probably around seventy years old, perhaps older. If that were the case, she would have been born in the later years of the eighteenth century, perhaps around the time of the beginning of the American Revolution in 1776. Given the shorter average life span at the time, someone in her 70's would have lived a long life. It's easy to understand why a family would persuade their grandmother to have her photograph taken so they could remember her when she had died. This photograph is likely the only picture ever taken of this unidentified woman, and it depicts someone who grew up and matured in the previous century when such technology was unheard of. Rarer still are daguerreotypes taken of surviving veterans of the American Revolution.

A younger generation, such as the young man above, took advantage of the novelty and had their picture made. The daguerreotype of the young woman below dates from about 1843-47. It would appear that she is probably twenty years or so old at best. Was the picture made when she turned eighteen, or when she became engaged? If she was in her early twenties, that would put her birth date at the early 1820's. In all likelihood, barring illness or accident, she could have lived into the 1880’s  

Daguerreotype, ca. 1847. My collection

The older man to the left, on the other hand, was probably middle aged in this daguerreotype taken around 1847. He might have lived to the Civil War, perhaps.

Daguerreotype ca. 1843-7. My collection

With our world constantly bombarded with images today, it is difficult to imagine a world in which the technology of producing an exact visual image of a person was new and exciting. These images were valuable and held a place of pride in a home. They also provided a visible way to remember someone who was afar off, or no longer living. It is helpful to pause and consider how precious a single image could be.

One last sub-genre of daguerreotypes is images of the recently deceased. This may sound ghoulish to us today, but if an elderly parent died and the family had never had a daguerreotype made of them while they were living, photographing them in death was the last option available to have an image of the loved one.  This was common enough so that a daguerreotype studio in Hartford, Connecticut advertised in 1846 that they could take images of the deceased accurately. I have a post-mortem ambrotype of a man and a tintype of an infant, but not a post-mortem daguerreotype. Those are relatively rare and command a very high price.

 

Hartford Times, Oct 24, 1846

The possibilities for the new art of photography grew as the technology improved and became easier to do and more affordable. Daguerreotypes were complicated to make, involving several chemical processes that had to be done precisely. With the advent of ambrotypes and tintypes in the 1850's photographs came within reach of average people.

 

 

The Past Is a Package

Early daguerreotype, ca. 1845. My collection

In unsettled times it is always tempting to look back at the past and romanticize it. I am interested in a number of different periods in the past, but the one that resonates with me the most is the nineteenth century. Part of it is personal. My parents were close to a decade older than other parents at the time my brothers and I were born, which pushes my grandparents back into the nineteenth century. The oldest was my maternal grandfather, who was born in 1876. He was fifty when my mother was born. He was already old enough to become a grandfather in the 1920’s. My grandmother, his wife, was born in the late 1880’s. My father’s parents were both born in the early 1890’s. For me, the nineteenth century has never seemed like the distant past, but the recent past. I think this has helped me to not romanticize it.

For many, such as my children’s generation, the nineteenth century is wrapped in a fog. It is too far back to have any direct felt connection to people then. The factor that helped my family to feel an affinity for this period is that my father’s family has been in one place for centuries. We have a sense of place and longevity. The names and images of my ancestors several generations back are as familiar to me as those of my parents.

Romanticizing the past can often come with a lack of familiarity. Many can and will say that times were simpler then—that people had fewer pressures on them and had more time for everything. I’ve actually heard people say that many times. The opposite is the case. We actually have much more leisure time than people did a century and a half ago. We can travel much faster. We have household appliances that perform tasks for us that were once done by hand—laundry, cooking, etc.

We are a society in which we are in close contact with many in our lives. Not necessarily physical, but through social media. And, if a family emergency arises it is easy to be in contact with those who need to know, through a text or phone call.

In the nineteenth century travel was possible, for sure, but took much longer. The fastest method was by rail, but that didn't become common until the 1850's, and even then there were many places that were not directly connected with rail.  Travel in general was expensive, and people who were separated by distance did not see one another often. This made communication even more vital. Other than direct personal contact, immediate communication was not possible until the advent of the telegraph in the early 1840's.

In the nineteenth century the memory of those who were separated from one another by distance or death was kept alive as it is today, with personal possessions, letters, and photographs. Photographs were much less common earlier in the century, and were non-existent until the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839. Even with that, daguerreotypes were expensive and those who could not afford them went without any likeness of their loved one with the possible exception of a silhouette.

Deathbed scene ca. 1860

 

We are also less likely to die or suffer from disease. The COVID pandemic brought us back to the reality that most of the world has experienced for most of human history. In the nineteenth century people routinely died of sepsis, tuberculosis, cancer, heart disease, and any one of the childhood diseases that we now take vaccines for—that is, until RFK Jr. succeeds in killing us off by dissing the efficacy of vaccines. That may not be long lived. 
The norm until the early twentieth century is that when a person fell ill with anything, there was an instinctual fear of impending death. The literature of the nineteenth century is replete with poetry and stories about how people health with death. How did they deal with death? Not much differently than we do. They grieved and tried to find meaning in a loved one’s death, much as we do now. The difference, if there is any, is that they were accustomed to sudden death in a way that we are not. Aside from accident or injury, or a sudden health crisis such as a stroke or cardiac arrest, we do not expect sudden death. They did. A cold could easily slide into pneumonia and carry away a loved one in a matter of days.

The religious environment was different, and that was where people often found meaning at a time of death. Much of the American population was evangelical Protestant, and a sizable part of the poetry and literature of this period reflects that worldview. The general theme was that those who were left behind could still feel the presence of their loved one who resided in the comforts of heaven, as in this example from circa 1860:

Our Little Child with Radiant Eyes

With seeking hearts we still grope on,
Where dropped our jewel in the dust;
The looking crowd have long since gone,
And still we seek with lonely trust:
O little child with radiant eyes!

In all our heartache we are drawn,
Unweeting, to your little grave;
There on your heavenly shores of dawn
Breaks gentler sorrow’s sobbing wave,
O little child with radiant eyes!

Dark underneath the brightening sod,
The sweetest life of all our years
Is crowded, in a gift to God.
Outside the gate we stand in tears;
O little child with radiant eyes!

Heart-empty as the acorn cup,
That only fills with wintry showers,
The breaking cloud but brimmeth up
With tears this pleading life of ours,—
O life child with radiant eyes!

We think of you, our angel kith,
Till life grows light with starry leaven;
We ne’er forget you, darling, with
The gold hair waving high in heaven!
O life child with radiant eyes!

Your white wings grown will conquer death!
You’re coming through our dreams e’en now,
With azure peep of heaven beneath
The arching glory of your brow,
O little child with radiant eyes!

We can not pierce the dark, but oft
You gaze on us with looks of balm;
A hint of heaven—a touch more soft
Than kisses—all the trouble is calm:
O little child with radiant eyes!

Think of us wearied in the strife,
And when we sit by sorrow’s streams,
Shake down upon our drooping life
The dew that brings immortal dreams:
O little child with radiant eyes!

From Lonnie, Our Little Lamb. Boston: American Tract Society, n.d., pp. 107-108

This may seem overly sentimental to our minds but it resonated with many.

Carte de visite, ca. 1864-7. My collection

I don't romanticize the past because any age is a package of good and ill. There are many interesting and exceptional aspects to that period, but also a lot of elements we would find difficult to accept, such as the prevalence of war, white supremacy, and out and out racism (sounds like today). Injustice abounded for many people. No epoch of human history is an unalloyed realm of virtue. Every age has its own failings. 

The aspects of life at that time mentioned above made life difficult. To romanticize any period is to skew how the people of that time understood themselves and their place in the world. They knew that the world they lived in was a mixed bag. It is true, nevertheless, that we can see things they couldn't. They couldn't have known the outcome of the Civil War when they were in the middle of it, for instance.

For me, the bottom line is that we shouldn't romanticize the past because it was someone else's present. We certainly don't romanticize our own time. Neither did they. The people who lived in the nineteenth century, with all of its problems and challenges, were no different than us in that they were just trying to get through the day. In that way they were just like us, with all the same hopes and fears.