Tag Archives: photograph conservation

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:

Sharing Our Work With The Public

Happy Preservation Week 2020 – Day 3!

Working in the basement of Langsam Library, we’re not often afforded many opportunities to connect directly with the general public. As Catarina mentioned yesterday, therefore, our usual “go-to” is to host an open house once a year during Preservation Week. Since we’re all hunkered down at home, we’d like to invite you check out some of the work we do, DIGITALLY.

If you’re curious about what we’re working on at home, be sure to check out this prior blog post.

This Friday, May 1st, 2020 at noon:

Please join Special Collections Conservator, Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer on Facebook Live to talk about scrapbooks.

Facebook Live with the Public Library, May 1st, 2020

Designed as a family event, there’s a little something for all ages:

During the session, we’ll fold a One-Page Wonder coloring book comic strip (created by Senior Conservation Technician, Christopher Voynovich) that highlights treatment of a 3 x 4 foot oversized scrapbook!
We’ll also talk about typical condition issues found in historic scrapbooks, such as those owned by the Public Library
As well as answer any questions you might have about preserving your own at home.

If you were unable to join, you can still check out the FB Live archived event here.

You can also download and print Chris’ comic and check out this video on how to fold a One-Page Wonder:

Airing after May 2nd:

Be on the lookout for the Lab’s 30-minute segment with Cincinnati’s Waycross Government TV station, or watch below.

This video highlights the collaborative nature of the Lab’s work that spans a variety of preservation and library-related activities. Meet conservation staff and hear stories from each staff member about some of their favorite projects, including the treatment of an iron gall ink manuscript, as well as where you can check out the lab’s online treatment documentation.

Stay tuned for more Preservation Week updates tomorrow, and don’t forget to check out ALA’s Preservation Week resources: http://www.ala.org/alcts/preservationweek. Take advantage of free webinars, information on preserving oral history, and more!

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer [PLCH] – Lab Manager, Conservator

Fun with PhotoDoc – Edition 4

The amazing enclosure made by our very own conservation technician, Chris Voynovich, for volume 1 of the W.S. Porter Collection.

We very recently returned a two volume collection of photographs taken by William S. Porter, known as the W.S. Porter Collection, to the Public Library. William S. Porter is known in Cincinnati as one of the two photographers responsible for the 1848 Cincinnati Panorama (you can read more about and even explore this amazing daguerreotype panorama here). Volume one of the collection consists of 7 cased photographs (including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes) and 1 non-cased tintype, all reportedly taken by W.S. Porter, while volume 2 consists of one framed daguerreotype of W.S. Porter and a preservation print of that photograph. When these photographs arrived in the Lab for treatment, many of the cases were damaged (especially along the spine – some broken completely, one previously “repaired” with tape, etc.), the framed photograph needed re-packaging, and the collection needed two custom enclosures (vol. 1 & 2) to safely store all the photographs.

(Left) Before “bench” photos of one of the cased photographs labeled “John Wesley Lever”, (Right) After photos of the mended case.

Now, as anyone who does photographic documentation will tell you, taking treatment documentation photos of photographs is a pain, especially on the copy stand (i.e. from above) and especially when you were trained in-house in a book and paper lab. Glass objects just aren’t as common around these parts. During PhotoDoc glass just acts as a mirror, reflecting all your light and even your camera lens and obstructing the actual photograph you are trying to capture. But we knew that we wanted some good quality photos of the photographs to print as surrogates and to also use in the enclosures. Black foam core and an Olfa rotary cutter to the rescue! Using these two supplies I created a non-reflective black surface to place around the camera lens to help reduce reflections and absorb light.

In order to mount this black foam core on the camera lens I measured the diameter of our lens and the distance from the edge of the lens to the neck of the copy stand when the camera was in place.

The foam core allows enough flexibility for the deflector to just slide past the UV filter and snap into place securely.

With the black non-reflective board in place, I was able, with guidance from our conservator, to get some pretty good shots of the photographs to be used as surrogates. The photos were also printed out and attached to the back of individual tuxedo boxes for each cased photograph. Instructions to “store face down” were placed on the front of each tuxedo box to assist patrons in proper storage. (The glass on all of these photographs is degraded and if stored face up the glass can actually weep onto the photograph causing significant damage, therefore cased daguerreotypes/ambrotypes/tintypes are generally stored up-side-down to prevent further damage to the actual photograph). All of the tuxedo boxes for volume 1 were housed within a two-tiered clamshell box with two removable trays made by our resident “Box Master”, Chris Voynovich. It should be noted that it’s a miracle this enclosure made it out of the lab and back to the Public Library, because several staff members were so enamored with it and thought it would make the best jewelry box! I mean, it kind of would, wouldn’t it?
Here are the images I was able to obtain using my homemade non-reflective board:

Jessica Ebert (UCL) – Conservation Technician

A Simple Solution for Lantern Slides

This October the Preservation Lab arranged for staff training in photograph conservation with an expert in this specialty to help us address specific needs for the two institutions. The lab hosted a 3-day workshop taught by Photograph Conservator, Tom Edmondson. Lab staff and two other local paper and book conservators attended. We were taught how to identify more than 16 types of historic photographic processes. We learned how to safely preserve and store a variety of formats, including daguerreotypes and lantern slides. Using actual historical photographs as learning opportunities we were taught basic and advanced treatment techniques such as surface cleaning photographs, washing, removing linings, flattening creases, and matting. The technicians have already begun to implement the knowledge gleaned from the workshop in the treatment of some Public Library lantern slides.
For example, with the lantern slide below the losses on the glass were filled with Vivak in order to prevent further damage. Vivak, a clear thermoplastic sheet, was chosen since it is archival, looks similar to glass and is an easy material to cut and shape without losing its structural integrity.
The Vivak was precisely cut and placed onto the missing areas.

Detailed images of the Vivak fills. Verso and recto pieces were secured together with a strip of Filmoplast R.

To attach the recto and verso of the Vivak fill pieces to each other, a strip of Filmoplast R was used around the edges. Filmoplast R, a cellulose tissue coated with an acid and solvent free heat-activated adhesive, was toned with Golden fluid acrylics to match the original paper strip around the edges of the lantern slide.
To protect the edges of the lantern slide, and to secure the filled areas in place, a strip of Mylar (polyester film) was placed along the edges and secured with a small piece of Filmoplast R.

The strip of Mylar around the edges of the lantern slide will also work as a barrier between the edges of the original object and Filmoplast R adhesive.

Finally, the lantern slide was sandwiched between two pieces of Vivak and secured with a strip of toned Filmoplast R by wrapping it around the edges.

With another lantern slide, the original plastic coated paper strip around the glass plates was lifting and detaching from the glass.

The detached black strip was mended and adhered in place with the heat activated adhesive BEVA film 371, and a tacking iron.

Since this lantern slide was not broken and the paper was mended, there was no need to sandwich the lantern slide between pieces of Vivak.

This project was a great opportunity to learn and work with different materials.

Ashleigh Schieszer (PLCH) — Book and Paper Conservator, Author
Catarina Figueirinhas (UCL) — Sr. Conservation Technician, Author & Photographer
Jessica Ebert (UCL) — Conservation Technician, Photographer