"Having your image struck"

[minieball]

Does anyone have a period reference for the term "Having your image struck" to mean having a photographic image made?

In my business I hear this term alot but I cannot seem to find a period reference for it.

Many Thanks in Advance!

[toccoa42]

Re: "Having your image struck"

I believe you are confusing that with the phrase "likeness taken". Having an image "struck" refers more to making coins (where you "strike" a coin) and thereby impress an image into the metal. Photos are a very different thing.

The term "likeness taken" in photography evolved from sitting for a simple drawing, where the artist captured a "likeness" of the subject. From the novel "Emma", by Jane Austen, Chapter 6:

"Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?" said she: "Did you ever sit for your picture?"

No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed, "What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself. . . It would be such a delight to have her picture!"

(And later, Emma petitions the artist):

"Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are."

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Later in the century, when photography of various types because available, the term morphed to include that medium as well as a simple drawing:

From the "Gospel Herald", or Poor Christians' Magazine, 1861:

"Did you ever think, children, the world is God's great photographic saloon, where we are all having our likenesses taken for eternity?"

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And you could probably find a million more such references. "Image struck" is probably a reenactorism.

[PetePaolillo]

Re: "Having your image struck"

Does anyone have a period reference for the term "Having your image struck" to mean having a photographic image made?

In my business I hear this term alot but I cannot seem to find a period reference for it.

Many Thanks in Advance!

It may be a misuse of the term..I know I am guilty of it...It may have morphed from the term striking a pose or " struck a pose" which has a period reference here, and is still used in photography today..

Reading American photographs: images as history, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans By Alan Trachtenberg

Pg. 67.....Whitmann never gave himself over to the camera passively, always struck his own pose......

http://books.google.com/books?id=0Jp7Q_N3aUYC&pg=PA231&dq=civil+war+photography&lr=&cd=2#v=onepage&q=image%20struck&f=false

[minieball]

Re: "Having your image struck"

I believe you are confusing that with the phrase "likeness taken". Having an image "struck" refers more to making coins (where you "strike" a coin) and thereby impress an image into the metal. Photos are a very different thing.

Nope...no confusion here. As a modern practictioner of the daguerrian and collodion art, I know what the term means historically. I just have heard this term used innumberable times in reference to modern wet-plate photographic image making at CW-period events (both c/p/h and main stream) and have long suspected it was a modern "reenactorism". I just wanted to validate it with the AC community in case I missed a period reference before I start correcting folks.


By the way...THANKS for the great period references

[Trish Hasenmueller]

Re: "Having your image struck"

I tried searching for "image struck" and then "picture taken" in the Making of America site. "Image struck" came up with two hits. Neither was about getting a photo made. They were both from the same story and the word image was the last word of a sentence and then struck was the first word of the next sentence.

"Picture taken" came up with a lot of hits and many of them are about having a photo made. Here's a link to the page of hits: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/c...tart=1&size=25


Trish Hasenmueller

P.S. Making of America is a great resource for popular culture of any era in American history.

[minieball]

Re: "Having your image struck"

Great resource, Trish...thanks so much!!

[Trish Hasenmueller]

Re: "Having your image struck"

You're welcome. Before they got the new software you could designate a time period to look at but now it gives you every year. If it doesn't find too many sources for your word or phrase, it will put the sources in chronological order.

I'm sure you noticed all the Scientific American references about the science of 'picture taking'.

Trish Hasenmueller

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: "Having your image struck"

Like Trish I used "image struck" and "picture taken" except using Google Books and limiting my search to 1840-1865. I got no results from "image struck" that were related to the photographic process and plenty of results of people being taken by a scene or a person. Using "picture taken" I got 633 results all of which seemed to be related to having a depiction of a person made with a camera.

[PieBoy96]

Re: "Having your image struck"

This isn't the phrase in question, but worth noting:


From the diary of Henry Keiser, Co. G, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry:
"Thursday, February 27, 1862. Yesterday the Regiment was formed and a Photographer took a picture of the Regiment and camp . . ."


From the diary of Erasmus Reed, Co. B, 96th Pennsylvania Infantry:
"February 26th, 1862. Camp Northumberland . . . There is nothing particularly new going on here, except that we have had the photograph of the Regiment taken today, and also that we received marching orders . . ."

[C.R. Henderson]

Re: "Having your image struck"

In a letter from Wright Vinson, of the 57th Ga., to his wife Christiana in July of 1862:
"..., I want you to take the train and gow up to Macon and get yours and the baby type taken and sent it to mee if it costs 50 dollars. My life aint now satisfaction to mee now how and I dontrecond yourn is ether. Sow I want your type if I cant get to come home"

"Hell's Broke Loose in Georgia. Survival in a Civil War Regiment" Scott Walker p.25

[SouthernRifle]

Re: "Having your image struck"

In a letter to his sister Caroline, James Branscomb, Co. D, 3d Alabama, wrote on July 27, 1861:

"A few days ago I had my ambrotype taken and sent it to Ma. When you write again, let me know whether she has received it or not."

Ma did receive the ambrotype.