Salvaged photos portray a distant Dahlonega

If a picture is really worth a thousand words, then an entire 19th century novel must be on display in the lobby of the Stewart Library at North Georgia College & State University.

Portraits of men sporting handlebar mustaches and women wearing intricate feathered hats tell the tale of a bygone Dahlonega and a time when sitting down for an actual photograph was a momentous occasion.

“If you think about it, how many times in a month or year do we have our picture taken?” said library director Shawn Tonner. “But to have your photo taken at the turn of the century was an unusual event.”

Indeed, the camera was a rare and peculiar device in the late 1800s.

However, one local man named Gaston Dahlonega Bruce owned such an instrument. And he made his living traveling throughout Lumpkin County fairs, festivals and revivals taking photographs of local residents.

He was known as “Lon” to the townsfolk and, according to library assistant Cynthia Horne, his camera must have been cutting edge technology for the time.

“The reason we have these is that is just happened that during this time-frame, the gel on the back of the glass plates became more stable,” she said. “This is really the beginning of recreational photography.”

The NGCSU library has a total of 99 of these negatives preserved on century-old glass.

Many more were donated to the Georgia Archives' Vanishing Georgia project in the mid-1970s by local historian Madeliene K. Anthony.

Anthony is credited with preserving much of Lumpkin County's local history, including these photos which were apparently destined for the dust bin.

“She evidently has salvaged a lot of significant stuff that people were just going to throw away,” said Horne.

The 99 negatives were returned to Lumpkin County after the subjects in them could not be identified. And from there they sat in a dark corner of the Stewart Library until 2006, when they caught the eye of Horne.

“I was cleaning out the office and found them,” she said. “And I have a little bit of photography background. That kind of just snowballed into ‘Lets get a grant and see what we can do.'”

As a result, $1,000 was provided by the Georgia Humanities Council which funded the digital processing of the aging images.

This has allowed for surprisingly clear pictures of the Jane and John Does of yesteryear, which now line the library entranceway.

Tonner added that if the exhibit attracts enough admirers, someone might just recognize a great-great-grandparent or two.

In fact, after the pictures made their debut, one particular 1800s entrepreneur was quickly identified.

His name is William Benjamin Franklin Townsend, one of the first publishers of The Dahlonega Nugget.

“We're crediting several sources with saying this is Townsend,” said Tonner.

Even if the names of the subjects are never revealed, many of the photos still contain significant glimpses into the way of life in 1800s Lumpkin County.

Naturally, NGCSU Art Historian and Gallery Director Dr. Pamela Sachant was delighted to delve into these details.

“That's the historian in me,” she said “I love coming across mysteries such as this.”

For example, old advertisements from The Dahlonega Nugget show that Lon Bruce definitely had a studio in downtown Dahlonega in the early 1900s.

However, according to Sachant, the styles worn by women in many of these photos would indicate that he might have started his profession many years earlier.

It's all in the sleeves, she said.

“You can tell by looking at how smooth the material is where the sleeve meets the shoulder on the woman's dress,” she explained. “It was very popular in the early 1890s for women to have a slight puff of the sleeve. So if it's a very smooth shoulder line, that would generally indicate it is a little bit before that time.”

Sachant has also deemed these images to be working photographs instead of the final products that would have been delivered to Bruce's customers.

As a result, many of the shaggy details that would have been glossed over and cropped out are still prominent.

“One that I find absolutely charming is a picture of a child that is sitting on a covered box and has on a broad white skirt,” she said. “Off to the side there's a man's head and he's peeking in and probably saying ‘Be still. Be still.' That would not have been in the finished photograph and that's a wonderful example of the behind-the-scenes aspects on these photographs.”

On Thursday, Jan. 10, Sachant will be on hand at 7 p.m. in the Community House on North Park Street to discuss her findings with the Lumpkin County Historical Society. The meeting is open to the public.

Meanwhile, Horne has studied the photos as well and believes she has stumbled upon a trio of photographs taken years apart, but all of the same child.

She's deemed this child to be the “angry baby” since in each portrait the girl is giving the camera the same unmistakably annoyed glare.

Apparently saying “cheese” hadn't caught on at that point yet either, since most photographs took 30 seconds to complete.

“Very few of them are smiling,” said Horne. “It was too difficult to hold that for that long.”

“And it possibly says something about dentistry then,” she added with a laugh.

Now that the photos have been preserved, the glass negatives have returned to a dark corner of the library, albeit in a new, protective box.

Now their digitized twins will remain on display for the public as all the photos are shown on a rotating basis.

Currently Tonner is also planning on a applying for another grant that would allow the pictures to be viewed on the Web.

“If we can get them on a server then the whole world can take a look at them,” she said.