Vestiges of Color in an Album of John Robinson’s Ten Big Shows |

John Robinson

John Robinson’s circus was a famous, traveling, family-owned circus’ that toured the United States for 69 years beginning in 1842. The family business stopped touring around 1910 and was officially sold in 1916. It was managed by four generations, all named John Robinson.

Packing up after a show. Image from the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library.

Tillie

As a local tidbit to note, the circus was stationed during the winters near Cincinnati, OH, where the family owners kept Tillie, the beloved elephant. Tillie was said to roam the neighborhood of Terrace Park and was well known in the community and beyond. Many stories were written of heroic accounts and even her ability to “talk”. She was memorialized when she passed in 1932 and a marker can be found at Circus Place in Terrace Park today.

Elephants being forced to perform in John Robinson’s 10 Big Shows. Image from the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

Cincinnati and Hamilton County Photographic Album

A rare photographic album owned by the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library (CHPL) dates to the late 19^th to early 20th century and contains albumen portraits of John Robinson’s circus performers. The images have been fully digitized after receiving treatment to improve legibility at the Preservation Lab. The CHPL Digital Library catalog describes the object as follows:

“Album of 266 photographs of varying sizes. Most are portraits of Robinson family members and of the circus staff and performers. Included are group portraits of the work crew, musicians, clowns, acrobats, novelty acts, and family acts, and circus animals. Many of the individual portraits are of side-show performers such as tattooed men, albinos, women with floor-length hair, dwarfs, etc. Some of these are studio shots that may have been sold or used as advertising. A small number have captions, and the few with dates are from 1901-1909.”

Toned Images

While the content of the images is spellbinding, the album is also unique as many of the photographs appear to be once toned overall with pink, yellow, or orange colors.

An online reference from the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) Preprints in 1980 refers to historic albumen photographs that were dyed and are extremely light sensitive. In the article, James Reilly states, “A great deal of the paper sold during the 1880’s and 1890’s was “doubly albumenized”, i.e., floated twice to obtain maximum gloss. Another common practice was the addition of aniline dyes to the albumen solution. Tinted paper was mainly used for portraits, and the most popular tint appeared to be pink, but various shades of purple, blue and even green were also used. Because the dyes had such poor lightfastness–especially in such dilute solution–most of the dyed paper is difficult to recognize today.” It’s fun to imagine that these tinted papers might have been used to capture and celebrate the lives of circus performers in John Robinson’s 10 big shows.

Many of the colors in the photograph album have faded irregularly, with the pink being the most prominent color remaining. This colored photograph phenomenon does not appear to be widely documented elsewhere as the fugitive dyes were not light-fast. They may have also been susceptible to dark fading and chemical instability. Because these photos were preserved within pages in an album, it’s possible they’ve been protected from light and some of the more chemically stable images have not yet completely faded, allowing us a glimpse of this rare format.

While treatment cannot be performed to recolor the images, some photographs did receive conservation treatment to improve visual legibility. There were nearly 30 images that appeared to have a dark discoloration. These photographs were identified to be missing fragments of paper backings. As a result, the dark album pages behind the photographs were obscuring the visibility of the photographic emulsion layer. Some of the more badly damaged images were carefully lifted, relined and reattached. Others received general surface cleaning. A few examples of improved readability are below.

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer (CHPL) – Special Collections Conservator

References and Resources:

Reilly, James. The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints, AIC Preprints. May 1980. Pp.93-98. https://cool.culturalheritage.org/albumen/library/c20/reilly1980.html

Suess, Jeff. Robinson’s circus wintered in Terrace Park, The Enquirer, Cincinnati.com, published Jan 26, 2017. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/01/26/robinsons-circus-wintered-terrace-park/97093392/

The Annual Record of the John Robinson’s 10 big Shows for 1900 is fully digitized at Illinois State where the roster of performers are listed and the program of displays are outlined. (See https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/p15990coll5/id/12035). Perhaps some cross examination of resources, such as this one, can lead to the identification of some of the portrait identities. See also https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/p15990coll5/id/11909.

Circus posters:

Additional articles: