by Shannon Butler The Vail photography studio that once operated on Main Street took thousands of photographs of the people of Poughkeepsie. As we discussed in an earlier blog post, we have in our collection boxes and boxes of these photographs. However, until fairly recently, most of the people were unidentified. Not long ago, our local history librarian Kira Thompson discovered that some of the ledgers from our collection have names and numbers that match up with these photographs. So now we are endeavouring to transcribe these ledgers so that we can put the names to the faces. While going through these images you begin to notice certain trends in the hairstyles of women. Bonnets were out, and braids, curls, and buns were in. Victorian era women tended to keep their hair very long (very few trips to the hair stylist back then, sound familiar my ‘Covid-19 era’ friends?) though it was not respectable to have your long hair out loosely much past the age of 15. With all of that hair, ladies could get very creative with their up-dos. Generally, women would be inspired by looking through magazines like Harper’s Bazaar or Peterson’s Magazine (seen on the right). These publications [...]

by Shannon Butler Did you know there is such a thing as a National Mustache Day? Apparently we missed it back on April 9th (and to be quite frank, it doesn’t seem like a legit thing, more like a brief internet craze), but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a moment to reflect on this random subject matter just for the heck of it. While flipping through the photograph collection here in the Local History Room it dawned on me that there were some serious mustaches (and other various forms of facial hair) that were quite popular at the turn of the 20th century. Everything from the handlebar, the horseshoe, the walrus, wacky sideburns and so on. By the way, the last President to have a mustache was William Howard Taft, all the way back in 1909-1913. You can see from the display of photographs to the right that there were many different patterns that were used here in Poughkeepsie. Most of these images are from the late 19th century and these guys are considered very stylish for their day. John P. Adriance decided to go without a mustache or a beard and opted for mega sideburns instead (named after Civil [...]

by Shannon Butler If your family lived in the Poughkeepsie area during the late 19th century than perhaps one of your ancestors sat for a photograph at Vail Brothers Studios at 254-256 Main Street (in other words, check those photo albums and your attics). Located here in the Local History Department are over 30 boxes containing thousands of photographic proofs made by the Vail Brothers studio during a 20 year period in the late 19th century. These images serve as an excellent example of the fashions and styles of those who could afford to have their likeness made in a time when photography had become an accepted form of art. The studio got its start in 1868 when 19 year old J. Watson Vail (1849-1922) set up shop at 254 Main St. in Poughkeepsie. His father and older brother were both businessmen in real estate and insurance but J. Watson along with his little brother Alonzo (1855-1929) took up photography instead. At first, the brothers appear to have worked separately, as Alonzo shows up in the directory as being a photographer in his own right. By 1872 J. Watson employed his little brother and soon thereafter they began to refer to [...]