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We have much more information by the mid-19th century about fashion and hair styles because of the development of photograohy. A substantial number of photographic portraits become available for the first time in the 1840s, while small by later standards, the number of available images was a quatum leap from the number of portraits painted in previous decades. The number of images means that we have a much wider range of social backgrounds depicted. Early Daguerotypes were not cheap, but they were only a fraction of the cost of a painted portrait. That means that they were within the price range of the middle-class as well as some working=class families. Many 1830s styles carried over into the 40s. Daguerreotypes show that hair styles by mid-century had become longer, often worn to or even over the ears. We think that this was a chronolgical trend, but it is possible that social clss was a factor. Less well to do parets might not be a careful with hair grooming. This is something that we need to work out. The problem here is that most Dags ar undated and we find it difficult to destinguish between 1840s and 50s Dags. We have a control for the 1850s in that Ambrotypes were mostly taken in that decade or the early-60s. Virtually all 1840s photographs are Dags. Thus if we do not see a certain style in Anbros, it probably was an 1840s or early-1850s Dag. We would be interested in input from any reader who can help us distingish between 1840s anf 50s Dags. Any reader who has insights on dating Dags would be of great assistance to HBC. A Dag which we have a good hanbdel on is unidentified American boy about 1847. We also note Clarence E. Summer about te same time. And at the same time we see some girls with short hair. Thus identifying the gender of younger children in the 1840s Daguerreotypes can be quite difficult. We note an unidentified American child who we think was photographed in the 1840s. We might have thought the child was a boy, but the center part suggests a girl. We note a nataly dressed young teenager with long hair. Another probable 1840s Dag is a family portrait, a young mother and her two children who look to be about 6-10 years old. We think it my be a 1840s Dag, because we do not see these hair styles to any extent in Ambros. We would be very interested in reader input. We do not post these images here because we have definitely dated them, but we think that they are probably 1840s images and hope more informtion can be acquired to more defimitely date them. Another indicator is gold rings. Thanks to the California Gold Rush (1849), America's stock of gold increased. And we note a lot more children with gold rings in the 50s than the 40s. Vests (waistcoats) are another indicator. Virtually all vests are in contrasying colors to the jacket--often very loud patterns. In the 1850s, we begin to see more muted vests. And at lest by the late-50s the vests bgain to match the jackets. Almost all vests match the jackets in the 60s.
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