Ronald Olin Cartes de Visite Photograph Collection

Collection

Identifier: Photo 2088

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Ronald Olin Collection of Cartes de visite Photographs includes 362 photographs, taken in various places in the United States, Canada and Europe. It reflects the collecting of these and other types of images by Dr. Olin over many years and from many sources. The date range is from approximately 1850 to 1890, though most are undated. All of the cartes de visite in the collection are portraiture. There are many unique items in this collection. It is a small but nice collection of images both documenting this photographic format type and the time period covered. They also show photographers’ styles of portraiture, including Dakota Territory photographers. The collection highlights how cartes de visite were used for advertising, their use during the Civil War and as souvenir items of famous people. It also provides for the comparison of American and European use of the carte de visite. Due to the size of this collection it has been arranged into eighteen series, some with sub-series. The series include: Weddings, Children, Pets, Little people, Fashion, Royalty, Presidents, Occupations, Entertainment, Pinups, Soldiers, Civil War, F.J. Haynes, South Dakota city and town photographers, North Dakota city and town photographers, Architecture, Landscapes and Cartoons. The Weddings Series is a collection of wedding portraits. There are eight different portraits of couples either standing or seated. Several are of foreign origin. The Children Series was divided into eight files. The Parents and children file has three pictures, two are of a child with its mother including one of the mother pushing a baby carriage and the other is a father and son. The Babies file has nine portraits; two are kids in their strollers the others are posed. Several are of foreign origin. The Twins file has four pictures; three of those pictures are twin boys the other is girls, including Willie & Freddie O’Brien. The Siblings file has seven pictures; three of them have two kids the three the other four have three kids in them. The Girls file has thirteen pictures of girls between around two and thirteen years old. The Boys file has nine pictures, again around ages between two and thirteen. The First Communion file has five pictures; four girls and one boy. All are studio portraits, each usually with a candle and/ or book. The Toys file includes young children with toy horses or other toy. The dolls file has three pictures of young girls with a doll. The Instruments file includes portraits of young people with accordions or various musical instruments. The Pets Series has four photographs of animals. Two are of a man and woman with a dog, a dog alone and a cat guarding baby chicks. The Little People Series contains two files. One being four different little people, including Admiral Dot, Major Atom and ‘The Fairy Wedding Group.’ The Tom Thumb file includes images of him and his wife, with their child and a woman holding a scale that is weighing a baby. A Fashion Series was established highlighting the clothing worn in a large series of portraits. The Men file contains nine portraits of men wearing coat and ties. The Women file contains fifteen pictures of women and different dress styles. The Women’s file has a Hats sub series and includes eight portraits. The Elderly file has seven pictures; four women, two men, and one couple. The Ethnic/Native file contains seven pictures of women. One is Japanese and the other six are Norwegian and Swedish women in folk costumes. The Royalty Series contains nine images royalty. People include Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; King Oscar II and Queen Sophia of Sweden and Norway; Eugenia, Empress of France; and the Duke of Wellington. The Presidents Series contains two files. There are nine pictures of American presidents and three pictures of presidential families. The presidents are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, one with both Washington and Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, U.S. Grant, James Garfield and Grover Cleveland. The family pictures are of Martha Washington, the Lincoln family, and Mrs. Garfield. The Occupations Series is broken down into three files: Employment, Clergy and Musicians. The five photographs in the job series are of a poet, seamstress, general store clerk, nurse, and a Salvation Army officer. There are seven portraits of clergymen, including identification for Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, and P.P. Bliss, and a Norwegian American Lutheran minister wearing the distinctive clerical collar. The five musician images include of Ole Bull with violin, two men with violins, group of women with a guitar and a man with an accordion. The Entertainment Series has four images including two of people having coffee or tea, one of a group riding in a carriage, and one of a man with a long rifle in hand, likely for hunting. The Pinups Series has three files, Pinups, Navy Tobacco, and North Carolina Tobacco. The pinup file has fifteen photographs, all of women in a variety of poses. The last two series are advertisements used by two tobacco companies in the 1800s. The Navy Tobacco file has five images of women, promoting the G & A Navy Long Cut brand. The North Carolina file has six images of women, advertising Marburg Brothers of Baltimore, Maryland. The Soldiers Series is arranged into five topical files. The Soldiers portraits file has twenty one pictures. There are three images of soldiers with family. The Medals file includes six portraits of men wearing one or more medals. Some of them are of foreign origin. The Weapons file consists of men in uniform holding a sword; again some are of European origin. The Comrades file has six images of two men posing together. In this file all of the photographs are of foreign origin. The Civil War Series has been organized into five topical files. All are consist of portraits. Commanders file has seven photographs, Soldiers has twelve, Sailors has eight, Wounded Veterans has just two, and Politics has three. The last file has a photograph of Stephen Douglas, Senator Andrews from New York and a political cartoon of John Wilkes Booth. The F.J. Haynes Series is a collection of fourteen portraits taken by F.J. Haynes. It is broken down into four files: Men contains five pictures, Women has three, Children has four, and Families has two pictures. All were taken at his Fargo studio except two which were taken in Moorhead, Minn. The South Dakota City and Town Photographers Series is a collection of twelve portraits of people, including men, women and children. They are organized the location of the photographer. The towns represented include: Aberdeen, Big Stone, Brookings, Dell Rapids, Estelline, Madison, Milbank, Sioux Falls, Watertown, and Yankton. The North Dakota City and Town Photographers Series consists of forty-five images of people taken by photographers from various towns. Most date to the territorial era up to 1889. The towns include Casselton. Devils Lake, Fargo, Grafton, Grand Forks, Hillsboro, Jamestown, Larimore, Mayville, Pembina, Tower City, Valley City and Wahpeton. They include images of babies and young children, men, women and couples. The Architecture Series includes six pictures of two churches, a school, tar-paper shack, and two houses. The tar-paper shack image was taken by O.E. Flaten of Moorhead. The Landscapes Series contains a picture of a house on a cliff, a lake, a waterfall, and a boating yard. Except for the lake scene, all likely taken in Germany. The Cartoons Series includes four sketches, one of a woman in a row boat on water, two of poor peasants, and one of a woman sitting by a tree looking into the sky.

Dates

1850s-1890s

Creator

Olin, Ronald, collector. (Person)

Access

The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the Institute.

Copyrights

Copyrights to this collection remain with the creator or are in the public domain.

Biography

Ronald Olin is a native of Winnipeg, Canada and received his medical degree there. He practiced medicine at MeritCare in Fargo, N.D. from circa 1965 until retiring in the late 1980s. One of his long-time interests has been postal history. He was a charter member of the North Dakota Postal History Society formed in 1983. Although interested in Dakota postal history, Dr. Olin also has collected extensively in postcard images on a variety of topics including Fargo, N.D., North Dakota cities and towns, Death and dying, Scandinavian royalty and Cartes de visite. Olin is retired and lives in Fargo.