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Horse and Buggy

Just a man taking his wife and eleven children into town in his horse-drawn buggy. This clever family has even screened in their porch for the summer. (I put this one away, so don't have the specs. It's larger than a 6" x 8" print, mounted on board. Nothing to indicate why that corner was cut out. Dates to 1900-1910.

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Nellie Coutant learns photography

Nellie Coutant, "February Thaw" or "An Indiana Road" (both titles written on the back), 5.5"x7", silver print, from the Crawfordsville District Public Library Collections Notice the tree trunks have been re-touched to create more separation of the individual trees in the dark forest. You can tell the snow is not fresh at all, as though hundreds of horse-drawn buggies have passed. You can see one inn use toward the center of the image, pulled to the side of the road. This undated photograph is unusual in Nellie's work, so I have always kept it in the back of my mind. Nellie Coutant, born in the early 1870s in Crawfordsville Indiana, was a well known young woman in that city of about 6500 people in the 1890s. The social lives of young people are well documented in the newspapers of this time period, and Nellie is listed as a guest or co-host at all kinds of events, from dances, holiday parties, weddings, funerals, fraternity events, and country picnics.

Nellie Coutant wins First Prize in 1899

Whoever Nellie's camera-friends were, I can imagine them in this basement room, experimenting with Flash paper to create an interior photograph to submit to the Ladies Home Journal contest for Boys' Rooms. This room also seems to be decorated with lots of photographs or drawings, as was the "Girls' Room" Nellie previously submitted. Her first-prize-win was announced in the May 1899 issue (page 48) and the above image appeared in the October 1899 issue on page 21 (LHJ didn't credit photos at this time, so this image is identifiable as Nellie was the 1st prize winner).

Nellie Coutant Goes to School, and other feminist leanings

1/18/1890, Women's Journal Isabella G. Coutant's youngest daughter, "Nellie" Coutant, was the only one of her children born in town. She purchased the house Nellie would spend most of her life in, in 1872, and left rural life behind. Isabella's obituary stated she graduated from Springfield Female Seminary School in Ohio in 1857. This was a private women's boarding school for upper grades. After graduating, she returned home to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. (Advertisements in local papers suggested Isabella's father, Robert Groff, was a hatmaker in Lawrenceburg.) Her obituary also stated that she "had the distinction of being one of the first teachers of graded schools in Indiana" ( The Crawfordsville Journal , July 24, 1916, p. 5. c. 5), and one can assume this happened near Lawrenceburg, between 1857 and 1861, when she met and married Chauncey Countant in May of 1861. Her first child, Mary, was born March of 1862 (according to her death certific

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