1873 Princeton Costume

Marked Princeton 73 on the front. Two men standing by another guy in some type of costume. Fake hands, tall hat, on stilts or a box. Any meaning? Photo was in the Culver archives at one time.

 

Well, I guess they are not college students. I don't know if the tall guy is standing on something. It sort of looks like a legit photo. There is a Culver Pictures Inc in Long Island. You could try to contact them. I thought Debra would have some ideas. She is really good with this type of thing.

 

It does not look like an original 19th century photograph - but a copy, or print from an old negative. All of the info on the back is modern - bar code, zip code, phone number, etc. As ulilwitch suggests, contacting them might prove fruitful. They might have cataloging information explaining the subject. (But they might want it back!)

 

Do you think it was deaccessioned or just not returned? The postal code dates it to no older than 1983.

Debora

 

Agree re contacting Culver.

Debora

 

not returned..... they may have a hissy fit !

 

Think of it as a library book. Perhaps a small fine?

Debora

 

That is a bizarre, and somewhat scary image.

 

Ivy League high jinks. Someone ordered it to reproduce so someone may have information on context.

Debora

 

Some information on Culver.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...es-artifact-brokerage-firm-llc-300738466.html

https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=14996

It's an original photograph with the stickers on back obviously added later for cataloging purposes. There was an ebay account years ago that was selling thousands and thousands of photographs of all types from the collection, each week there'd be a new mix of items. It was always interesting to browse through.

 

Is it an albumen print mounted on a heavier stock?

 

Yes. Well, its on what's left of the original mount. Culver went and peeled the top layer off mounts for many of their older images. Probably to make them easier to store and take up less space, since they were dealing with millions of images. They were focused on the image itself, not how it was presented. I have cabinet cards that they did the same thing to.

 

Here's a cabinet card that they did the same to. Looks to have been acquired by Culver earlier than the Princeton photo, with the information stamped on.

 

Ah ha...a match !

 

Fixed the exposure a bit...just because.

 

That looks better.

 

William Roe Howell, a New York photographer, was commissioned as class photographer at Princeton in 1869-1870 and 1872-1873. He produced albumen prints.

This photograph appears to be taken in the same location, based on the trees and shrubbery -

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.60.3.0401

https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2012/03/princeton_in_stereo.html

The fellow who is third from the left, front row, looks like one of the men in your photo. The others are probably there, too.

 

Here's members of the 1873-74 baseball team. Tall man at back left looks like our tall man at right in OP's photo. He and others are identified by name above.

https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1873-princeton-university/

Debora

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Roe_Howell

http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/peop...onid=DC95369BA518CAF05EF5455ED3027E69/objects

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26792790/william-roe-howell