How to date an old family photograph

Cased images: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes

The daguerreotype was announced in 1839 and is an image on a silver-coated copper plate. A University of Washington dating chart places it from 1839 to about 1865, with its peak in the 1850s. It is usually found in a small case, and the chart notes that the simplest mats and cases are the earliest.

The ambrotype is an underexposed glass negative backed with something dark, which makes the image read as a positive. The Library of Congress says James Ambrose Cutting patented the process in 1854 and that ambrotypes were most popular from the mid 1850s to the mid 1860s, when paper cartes de visite replaced them. Like daguerreotypes, they were sold in cases or frames behind a brass mat and cover glass, and cheeks, lips and jewelry were often tinted by hand.

The tintype, first called a ferrotype or melainotype, is an image on a thin sheet of iron coated with dark lacquer. It appeared in the 1850s and, being cheap and quick, kept going well into the 1900s. The University of Washington chart gives it a span of 1856 to 1930, with small gem tintypes common from 1863 to 1890 and carnival and street photographers using it from about 1875 to 1930. A magnet will cling to a tintype, but the Library of Congress warns that a metal sheet placed behind an ambrotype can fool you, so look at the plate itself too.

Cartes de visite: the first family album photos

The carte de visite is a small paper photograph glued to a card about 2 1/2 by 4 inches, the size of a visiting card. André Disdéri patented the format in 1854, and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission says it was immensely popular between 1860 and 1866, when for the first time an ordinary family could own several copies of the same portrait. Cartes were still made until about 1900, so a carte alone does not mean the 1860s.

The State Library of Ohio offers these clues. Early mounts are thin and later ones are thicker. Cards from the 1850s and 1860s usually have square corners; rounded corners began to appear in the 1870s. Printed borders of two thin lines, usually gold, first appeared in 1863, and borders of the 1870s were generally a single line. Decorated cartouche frames and hand tinting were popular in the 1860s, while oval images were in fashion in the 1870s.

Cabinet cards and later mounts

The cabinet card is the larger cousin, about 4 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches (sources give the short side as anything from 4 to 4 1/2 inches). It reached the United States around 1866, was the favorite format of the 1880s and 1890s, and faded after 1900. The State Library of Ohio notes that white and cream mounts were always popular, while darker mounts in burgundy, dark green and black were in style in the 1880s and 1890s, and scalloped edges point to the 1890s. A true black and white image, rather than a sepia one, was likely made in the 1890s or later.

Lettering changes too. Before 1880 the studio name was usually printed in plain type; from the 1880s it became more ornate, and the back of the card carried more and more decorative printing, called a backmark.

The studio imprint and the city directory

Many card photographs carry the photographer's name, often with a street address, under the picture or on the back. It is a strong clue, because studios opened, moved and closed. Look the photographer up in the city directories for that town, year by year, and note the years the studio was listed at the address printed on your card. Our guide to city directories explains how to find and read them.

Treat the result as a range, not a fixed date. Photo historian Jeremy Rowe, writing for the Ephemera Society of America, points out that photographers, especially in remote places, used up old mount stock after styles changed, that popular images were reprinted years later, and that negatives were sometimes sold to other studios.

The back of the card: tax stamps, postcard backs and handwriting

Turn every card over. A small federal revenue stamp on the back is a gift. The University of Washington chart dates these photograph tax stamps from August 1864 to August 1866, a Civil War tax that the Texas State Library says was introduced in 1864 and repealed after the war. On one carte in the Texas collection, a green three-cent stamp shows the photograph sold for 25 to 50 cents.

Snapshots and real photo postcards bring new clues. Kodak's Brownie camera of 1900 put photography in ordinary hands. On postcards, the back tells a lot: the University of Washington chart lists the private mailing card from 1898 to December 24, 1901, an undivided back with the message written on the front until 1907, and a divided back from 1907 on. On a real photo postcard, the paper name printed in the stamp box gives an earliest likely date: Velox from about 1901 or 1902 (dating guides differ) and Azo from about 1904. A postmark, if the card was mailed, sets a latest one.

Handwriting is the clue to treat most carefully. The Ephemera Society article calls handwritten notes the most suspect information on a photograph, because they were often added long after by someone who knew the sitter only secondhand.

Clothing, hair, and what a photo cannot prove

Women's dress and hair, men's beards and neckwear can support a date, as the State Library of Ohio notes. Use them last, as support for what the card or case already tells you, and give them less weight when they disagree.

Even a well dated photograph cannot prove who is in it. A date tells you which relatives were the right age at that time, which is valuable, but a resemblance or a name added later is not proof of identity. Many of the Civil War portraits the Library of Congress shows from its Liljenquist collection are catalogued simply as unidentified soldiers or families, even though each was once someone's relative. Record your identification as a likely one and say why.