The Evolution of the Photo Album
Sir John Herschel
When he invented the word in 1839, Sir John Herschel defined a photograph as an “instrument for recording.” The Greek roots photo-, meaning light, and -graph, meaning writing, imply that photography is the practice of writing with light. Indeed, exposure to light is the key ingredient for making a “sunprint” permanent.
Photography as a method of permanently capturing images was not created until the 1830s, when Louis Daguerre sped up exposure time by using photographic plates. Daguerre also discovered how to permanently preserve images by immersing them in salt.
“Daguerromania” was soon sweeping the nation, and middle class consumers lined up to pose for family portraits to display for friends. Meanwhile, portrait artists across the nation fretted that the increasing popularity of photography would lead to portraiture’s demise.
And, in a way, they were right. Before photography, the calm lake or mirror was a person’s main source of seeing oneself. The advent of photography meant you could not only see a permanent image of yourself, but that you could remember yourself, your friends, and any moment forever—or at least as long as the photograph lasted. Portrait artists were no longer needed to reproduce likenesses of famous individuals. The march toward inexpensive and universal image reproduction had begun.
The earliest daguerreotype photographers offered their clients photo albums to display their portraits. When photographs were more expensive to have taken, photo albums were bejeweled treasures. Rather like old bibles, these earliest albums had thick leather covers and pages lined in gold. Their covers could be composed of luxurious velvet, embellished with gold, silver, glass, and mirrors.
A thorough history of photo albums would also include the first book including photographs, The Pencil of Nature , by Fox Talbot. Talbot’s paper negative process allowed and encouraged affordable multiple prints, unlike the initially sharper daguerreotype . Later, the collodion method allowed the cost of having a photograph taken drop from a week’s wages to around 2% of a week’s wages. This allowed people to collect multiple photographs throughout their lives, requiring the development of photo albums to organize and protect photographs.
For the majority of the nineteenth century, photographs were rare enough that a collection showing multiple generations was cherished. The earliest family trees were often kept on the opening pages of elaborate photo albums , and included cut-out spaces for family members. To fill a family tree like this could take lifetimes, and one person might only add a few photographs in his or her time on earth.
The addition of photographs to calling cards also necessitated the production of photo albums. In Victorian times, ladies carried calling cards when visiting their family or friends. Whether or not they were home, “calling on” friends always meant you left your calling card, which would sometimes be displayed in a special holder on an entry table. A secret code of calling cards was hard-wired in the Victorian brain; for instance, a folded down top left corner meant the visitor had come in person, rather than sending their servant. Once photographs were included on calling cards, collecting the calling cards of friends and relatives became a popular hobby.
As photography technology improved, it became more and more affordable for families to keep multiple photographs. Naturally, photo albums became larger to store more and more photographs.
Celluloid covers for photo albums were popular between 1892 and 1915. Elegant ladies, flowers, and country scenes, and lovers were common themes for celluloid covers. Unfortunately, over time, celluloid can peel or crack. Today, celluloid-cover photo albums in good condition can fetch hundreds of dollars.
Plastics and celluloid would figure largely into the democratization of photography following George Eastman’s introduction of flexible film in 1884. Now photographs could be produced on a dry plate, allowing the emergence of amateur photography. The dark room was no longer necessary; one simply brought the film to a developer, and returned for the prints later.
The ever-declining cost of photography meant more and more people had photographs that needed to be organized, and advances in plastics technology during and after WWII lead to the development of slide-in clear pages. These pages were often sealed so as to create compartments for each photograph.
By the 1980s and 90s, photography was such an affordable hobby that many families found they had overflowing boxes of photographs to be organized into shelves of albums. Accordingly, photo albums became less expensive and more common.
The dawning of the digital era has meant that people no longer have to print out every picture and save it in a physical album; instead, many store their photographs online, only printing copies when planning to fill a specific space. The development of social networks like MySpace and Facebook meant people could remotely view their friends’ photo albums, and networking photography websites like Flickr and PhotoSpace emerged. Today, people often view their friends’ cool pictures by browsing an online gallery. It’s incredible to consider that thousands of people from around the world may appreciate the same photograph online. From single-copy daguerreotypes to virtual representations, photography and photo albums have certainly changed since their inception in the nineteenth century.
~Colleen Welch, 2009
Photo courtesy of Ergo Martini
