Parallel Lives 1908

The family photographic archive is fairly large and it is a chore to make sense of all of it. I have come up with a system of sorting the images by year and family. One of the interesting things is that there are photographs from Helen and Joe in the same years before they knew each other. In 1908, when Helen was still 14 these photographs were taken.

This family photograph may well have been taken in Central Park, not far from where they lived. The back row from left to right is Helen (14), Bertha (40) and Florrie (12). In the front row on the left is Abe (9) and Lillie (8). It is quite possible that John Rosenstein was the family photographer that day.

These photographs of Helen are quite small. The image size is 5/8" X 1" and the mat is 2 1/4" X 3".  They are nice portraits of a young girl that loved to be photographed.

Joe also liked to document himself in his daily life as seen in the photograph below.

This photograph of Joe was also taken in 1908 when he was 22 and just one year out of law school. The photograph was taken in Hartford, CT. Most likely this was when Joe was out working on a case. The strange thing about this image is that Joe is pointing to a rope and when you look closely it looks like a noose. I would love to know the story behind this photograph. 

Here is a tintype with Joe front row center with some of his friends. For the most part photographs in 1908 were printed on paper, like the ones above, in what became the traditional process. Tintypes were not used much in 1908 but they were popular at seaside resorts and county fairs because they were processed on the spot. You can tell by the backdrop behind them that they were in a portable studio that would have been used at a resort or a fair.