Dating photographs and determining geography by props in photo?

The following information was found in a book I am reading --

"The Pencil was a Prop In the old days everybody had his picture taken. The immigrant shed his Old World clothes and the first thing he wanted to do was have his picture taken 'as an American.' The portrait studios made lots of money. I remember we had six or seven pictures of various relatives hanging on the wall and each of the subjects wore eyeglasses and a few of them also held a pencil in the right hand. This is very funny, and yet it is so downright sad that it catches you in the throat just thinking about it; because you realize how desperate was the drive for education, status, making something of oneself. They had seen doctors, lawyers, and teachers with eyeglasses. And therefore every picture gallery had a box of assorted styles of eyeglasses. When the fellow posed you he said, "How about a pair of eyeglasses?" knowing you would be too shy to suggest it yourself. You acted a bit coy, but you were very grateful to the man, especially when also put a pencil in your hand."

side note -- The author was relating things he had observed while he was a child and then a young man living with his family in New York City. Harry Golden was born in 1902 and died in 1981.

Above quoted material from The Best of Harry Golden, World Publishing Company, 1967, pp. 151-152.

Just wondering if any of us may have been "influenced" into thinking a certain way about an old photograph which contained "props."

I'm certain I have been "influenced" by "props" on occasion.

 

Edward S. ----

Curtis has been praised as a gifted photographer but also criticized by some contemporary ethnologists for manipulating his images. Although the early twentieth century was a difficult time for most Native communities in America, not all natives were doomed to becoming a "vanishing race."[28] At a time when natives' rights were being denied and their treaties were unrecognized by the federal government, many natives were successfully adapting to western society. By reinforcing the native identity as the noble savage and a tragic vanishing race, some believe Curtis detracted attention from the true plight of American natives at the time when he was witnessing their squalid conditions on reservations first-hand and their attempt to find their place in Western culture and adapt to their changing world.[28]

In many of his images Curtis removed parasols, suspenders, wagons, and other traces of Western material culture from his pictures. In his photogravure In a Piegan Lodge, published in The North American Indian, Curtis retouched the image to remove a clock between the two men seated on the ground.[29]

He also is known to have paid natives to pose in staged scenes, wear historically inaccurate dress and costumes, dance and partake in simulated ceremonies.[30] In Curtis' picture Oglala War-Party, the image shows 10 Oglala men wearing feather headdresses, on horseback riding down hill. The photo caption reads, "a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy's camp". In truth, headdresses would have only been worn during special occasions and, in some tribes, only by the chief of the tribe. The photograph was taken in 1907 when natives had been relegated onto reservations and warring between tribes had ended. Curtis paid natives to pose as warriors at a time when they lived with little dignity, rights, and freedoms. It is therefore suggested that he altered and manipulated his pictures to create an ethnographic simulation of native tribes untouched by Western society.

 

To go off on a tangent... it reminds me of posts on Facebook.

If people look back at them in 50 or 100 years, they're going to think that almost everyone alive in the 2010s was always surrounded by loving friends and family, vacationed and partied constantly, and was happy all the time.

On a serious note, though, that's sad about the actual reality of Indians' lives being misrepresented.

 

Having taken several photography classes, many many years ago, in college.
Manipulating the scene for a better shot is not that unusual.
The photographer like an artist wants to tell a story, convey a mood or theme.

 

Hence whole families being deleriously joyous as they manipulate the Tide bottle!