Featured Cabinet photo - little boy & his hound dog - need help with dating please.

Those overalls look positively crisp to me.

 

It links to another relevant section of the same book on the history of Bethel as I have at the first link posted.

 

This one is well behaved enough to know the command Look at the camera, or maybe mom was standing right by the photographer. What I notice in television shows that use a dog is that the critter is often clearly looking at someone out of sight of the camera, not where one would look if actually part of the action. I admired that about the dog in Downton Abby, how it looked at the actor who was supposed to be her owner & not offstage. I could tell when they had replaced her, not on appearance, on the way she was directed her attention in the wrong direction. They killed her off.

 

Sorry to be late to this interesting discussion. I agree with Kronos about the physical characteristics of the card mount being odd for the period. On the other hand the facts of when Bowler was a photographer in Bethel have to be an overriding factor in this case. I haven't found any other Bowler as a photographer in Bethel, Maine during an earlier period.

It hasn't been mentioned, but in the 1900 U.S. census Wilfred Bowler gave his occupation as "Grocer." So that corresponds well with him selling the studio in 1900.

I did find a little snippet of information in an online newspaper from June 21, 1898:
"Mr. W. J. Macneil visited this place last week in the interest of Mr. Bowler, photographer of Bethel." This was from the Oxford Democrat newspaper. Here is a link. https://digitalmaine.com/cgi/viewco...sredir=1&article=1448&context=oxford_democrat

Notably, whoever added the heading on this digitized page listed the wrong newspaper date. The actual paper was from 1898, which can be found by scrolling back up to the first page. That's especially important in terms of what we are discussing.

 

A few more observations on this photograph - it looks like it might be an albumen print, from the color and the slightly crinkled surface visible in the last photo. But albumen prints continued to be made up until 1920 or so.
As for the older style of mount, perhaps it was the least expensive type for what seems to have been a less than thriving studio.

 

I thought of that also. So many possibilities! But it's fun to try to figure it out.

 

I have a picture of my Uncle Frank born in 1908 wearing almost the same hat and overalls. I think that style probably lasted for awhile because he probably was wearing hand-me-downs from his older brother, Charles, who was born in 1898