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American cabinet card United states chronology 1920s
American Cabinet Card Chronology: The 1920s
Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows the graduating class at the Child's School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1924. The cabinet card looks like an early-20th century portrait, but it is dated so we know it was taken at the end of the school year (June 1924). Cabinet cards were becoming a lesser part of the photographic record by the 1920s, but we still se some. School portraits were till often done as cabinet cards. Plain brown mounts like the one here were common. The photographer was Dan E. Paul in Philadelphia.
We continue to see cabinrt card in the 1920s, but far fewer. They were no longer the dominant format. We see more post-back photographs and plain prunts, but we still see a number of cabinet cards. It seems to have continued to be a popular way of doing school portraits. Some were done with very destinctive, highly decorated mounts. Brown was a very common color for these school mounts. Blue-green was also common, some times with a dark particles mixed in. This is the last decade that we see commonly see these colors that first appared in the 1900s decade. Others were very plain, more like some mounts we see in the very early-20th century. These plainer cards seem to have been most common in school photography. Many if the examples we have found are school portraits. We notice cabinet cards from both urban and rural schools. The school portraits we have found are relatively plain, but with varying degrees of ruling and embossed framing. Perhaps the desire for a larger size print was a factor. Otherwise the parents could not see thaeir child very clearly. The 1920s was the last decade that we see relly large numbers of cabinet cards.
Here we have another school portrait done as a cabinet card. This one has a blue-green color with particles mixed, a very popular color for early-20th centurty mounts. There are no framing rules or studio information. It was a 1st grade parochial school in 1921. We bekiece it was located in East Orange, New Jersey. The girls clothes are well illustarted as they were placed in the front row, but there are interesting fashion details for the boys and girls. We still see large hair bows which were very popular in the 1910s. The Church seems to be using a large home as school, the diocese apparently did not have the financing to build a school.
1924
We note a very plain brown Philadelphia school cahinet card portrait invery poor conition (figure 1). Thisportrait shows the graduating class at the Child's School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1924. We think they may be 8th graders, but some of the children look a little older. The cabinet card looks like an early-20th century portrait, but it is dated so we know it was taken at the end of the school year (June 1924). The card was very plain with a simple narrow rule. It was a cabinet card that had a 10"x15.5" card and a photogrph that measured approximately 8"x14". We do not see the increasigly fancy mounts being used for the larger school portraits.
Here we have a portait taken at the came school East Orange New Jersey parochial school that we see in 1921 which was a 1st grade class. School potraits were common for this last decade in which we see many cabinet cards. It was the same class, we think about 4-5 years later. We know it bwa sthe same class becaise we see the same littke girl in the 1st garde class inb thuis 5th grade class. It looks to us like a 5th grade class. The studio used the exact same blue-green plain mount, again with no ruling or studio information. Alomg with brown, it was one of the most popular color for cabinet card mounts that wse see adter the turn-of-the 20th century.
This school portrait looks to be a dark brown cabinet card. It was a gelatin silver print taken in 1926 and shows a small-sized class "Fifth C', a 5th grade (10-11 year olds) class. The mount had very pronounced embossed framing. Some cards in the 1920s were vedry highly decorative. The school cards tended to be plainer with only same color ruling and framing. Brown seems to have been a popular color. The mount was 8.75" x 7.25" The photo was 6.5" x "4.5".
