At the turn of the 20th c., the Detroit Publishing Co. produced numerous photographic prints and postcards. Some of these were photochrom, a printing process that took black and white photographs and colorized them. The result is sometimes mistaken for a true color photograph, because photochrom doesn’t have the pastel tint of hand coloring; but it isn’t really a color photo. You can read more about the photochrom process here if you want. Sometimes an image is many years older than the photochrom print made from it. Color prints were very popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s – it wasn’t just the Detroit Publishing Co. that made them.

This particular Detroit Publishing Co. print is now in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. It is a posed portrait of a Chinese American family, probably taken in California, and printed in photochrom sometime between 1898 and 1905. A mother proudly shows off her children by lining them up on the stoop in front of a building. She is smiling slightly, apparently happy with this display, but the children themselves seem less sure – especially the one on the far left! It is also interesting to note that you can see graffiti on the building behind their mother!

Click on the image to see it / download it full-sized.

A Chinese Family, photochrom print, 1898-1905. Detroit Publishing Co. collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LOC #LC-DIG-ppmsca-17886.

Peace,

Bekka

Tags: .jpg, 1900, children, Chinese, color, daily public domain, DPD, free, graphics, image, Library of Congress, LOC, mother, PD, photochrom, photograph, portrait, public domain, Victorian, woman, women