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3. Ties That Bind: Family
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_______31~_______ Ties That Bind FAMIL Y ~ MONG the household elements most expressive n\of an identification with family were crayon portraits, cabinet cards, cartes de visite, and snapshots of immediate family and relatives. Such images adorned middle- and lower-middle-class houses throughout the state. Texans, along with others, used the images to keep their past within their present reach. Like other late Victorian Americans, Texans also sought to embrace and record their present. They showed enthusiasm both for their new situations and for the camera's new technology - some people even featuring photographic images of themselves as they posed for still another picture and incorporating many types of photographs into their domestic settings. Interior views reveal that crayon portraits were especially popular; their size and framed format made them desirable household accessories . Crayon portraits were life-size enlargements made from smaller formats, usually the carte de visite or cabinet card. A photographic process produced a faint image usually in a dark gray color on matte-surfaced paper that served as the underlying sketch hand finished with pastels or charcoal. 1 Contributing to the crayon portrait's popularity from the 1860s through the turn of the century was its low price and accessibility. In 1895, Sears, Roebuck advertised that if buyers mailed in a photograph, $1.98 could transform it into an 18-bY-22-inch crayon portrait; for an additional $1.97, the buyer could purchase a beautiful frame. 2 Cabinet cards, cartes de visite, and snapshots were smaller than the crayon portrait, but they were easily adapted to house decoration. Cabinet-card mounts measured 41/2 by 61 /2 inches, and those of the carte de visite, 21/2 by 41/4 inches. Although special sizes of photograph albums were created to fit these portrait photographs, many people chose instead to adorn their mantels and tabletops with the images. Small snapshots were glued to 49 Inside Texas 3.2. Parlor, Unidentified house (possibly the George A. Miller house), Longview, 1897 (Courtesy Mrs. Paul Brooks Belding). 50 [3.147.62.92] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:51 GMT) various-sized mounts as freestanding accessories or had holes pierced in their mounts to be strung together with ribbons as wall-hung photographic "ladders." A single interior view of a bedroom shows how a house can exemplify family identification by means of a variety of photographic formats (fig. 3. I). While no members of the Wade family are seen in this photograph, the room is crowded with wall-to-wall Wades. Widow Sallie Wade lived on a ranch outside Benjamin in Knox County with her son and daughter-in-law, Isaac and Etta, who operated the ranch. Figure 3.1 shows Sallie's bedroom circa 1895. Isaac Wade was "a prominent West Texas cattle man." He and Etta ranched in Oklahoma and in Howard, Knox, and Haskell counties in Texas more than fifty years before his death in 1934. One brief sketch written during the Great Depression noted that "Mr. and Mrs. Wade worked together on the range battling the elements as well as market fluctuations," a reference made at a time when such family solidarity would have been noted. 3 We can infer that the family had close ties by looking at their home's interior some four decades before the published comment. Identically framed crayon portraits of Isaac and Etta Wade hang in the corner above the bed. Each displays the cabinet card upon which the enlargements were modeled. Crayon portraits are predominant in the bedroom, defining the space as one in which family identification is expressed . They line the painted, horizontally boarded walls like a frieze; they rest on cardboard trunks; and they serve as washstand splashboards. Such placements of typically wall-hung accessories could reflect limited space or an effort to include all the family in a single view - essentially a group family portrait. At least three photograph albums rest on the dresser, probably arranged for the photograph. One album of cabinet cards and a pair of carte de visite albums flank the "mantel" clock, the dresser top functioning as a kind of mantel in the absence of a fireplace, giving a focal point to the room. This is a family interested in documenting itself and using the documentation to decorate their home. The inferred small space of the Wade house may have reinforced familial interaction. Pairs of furniture forms two beds, two rocking chairs, and two dressers - suggest use of this one room by...