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At the time of my writing this article, CSI is the most popular show on TV. In this show, small clues lead to the solving of major crimes.

I like detective work, making deductions from small clues. I think that may be why I enjoy the challenge of trying to establish the date when a photograph was taken.

It started when my father gave me an old family photo album. We pored over the pictures while he identified as many subjects as he could. He did not know anything about a third of the photos, including most of the older ones. Playing detective, I have managed to identify the people in all the older pictures and about half of the other unknowns.

To find out who the people are, you must establish a date as this will narrow down your choices considerably. We can usually guess the age of the subjects, especially if they are children, to come up with a probable birth date.

Dating photographs is not an exact science but there is a process that you can follow. Please remember that what follow are generalities: there are always exceptions. Having said that, I won’t qualify each of the following statements individually.

Women
If there are females in the picture, look at the hairstyle (this applies to both children and adults): in many cases, this alone can give you a date. From the earliest days of photography, the 1840s, until about 1870, women’s hair was always parted in the middle and tied or pinned at the back. This style largely disappears by 1890. From about 1870, hairstyles change rapidly. Frequently a number of styles were popular at the same time (as they are today).

Dresses are the next most important clue. This is almost the only way of dating photos (of women) prior to 1870. Dress styles changed at least as often as they do today. People in rural and/or poor areas were not behind the sophisticated big cities when it came to fashion. This widely held belief is not borne out when pictures of known date are studied.

Men
Men are far harder to date than women. Men are usually photographed wearing a suit. While suits from the 1840s are different from those of the 1930s, the changes are far more gradual and have a greater overlap of styles than dresses. The same applies to hairstyles and facial hair.

The easiest way to date photographs of men is neckwear. Unlike suits and hair, neckwear did change fairly frequently. Ties as we use them today, with a small knot, are not seen before about 1900. Ties with a very large knot first appear in about 1870 but are out of fashion by 1900. Small bow ties are popular at all periods from the 1840s to 1930s but large bows were out of fashion by 1870.

Beards are only helpful if they are of the “untidy” type (the men in the picture provide excellent examples). These were popular in the period 1860-1880.

Smiling
Having your photograph taken was a pretty formal affair, almost always done in a studio, until about 1900 when amateur photography came into vogue. A photograph was for posterity, life was serious and smiling is almost unknown before 1900.

Photo courtesy of Thelma McMurchy.

Dating The Example
The photograph shown at right has several clues. Look at the girl’s hair. Ringlets of this type were fashionable in the late 1870s and again around 1900 but only during the earlier period was the hair parted in the middle. The photo could be dated from this alone. To confirm this, the heavy bow on the girl’s dress was a feature throughout the 1870s. The “sailor” top to the dress is unusual on girls though boys were often photographed in sailor outfits.

The untidy beards, especially on the man on the left, indicate a period before 1880.

So the girl’s hairstyle is the major indicator, confirmed by the bow on the dress and the men’s hairstyles: this picture was taken between 1875 and 1880.

Obviously a short article like this can only scratch the surface. Subscribe to Family Chronicle now and receive Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929 ($12 US, $15 Canadian value) FREE with your order and find out much more about uncovering the secrets behind those old family photographs.

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This article appeared in our March/April 2003 issue.