Skip to main content

IN Photo History

Search This Blog

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.

Comments

Popular Posts

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.

From the collection: Tall Woman on Southwest Rug

Unmarked cut silver photograph, early 20th century. This glamorous lady seems so modern! And modest. An interesting detail of this image is the amateur pencil retouching of her shoulders, which have a very distinct poof. This style goes in and out of fashion constantly. Whenever this dress was made, it was clear the person (most likely THIS woman), scratched out the shoulders. I think this is a pretty recognizable indication of self-consciousness at seeing one's reproduced image. Even her eyebrows and lips have been retouched.

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

Powered by Blogger