The OTHER Women- in the Twain Legend

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) LOVED  women. Old ones, young ones... When his daughters were gone he informally adopted many young girls to run around with him. He called them his "angelfish." Perhaps the most famous of these was a child actress named Elsie Leslie. 

 This collection has numerous tintypes featuring the wonderful women in Mark Twain's life, and especially the other women... his childhood girl friend, cousins, female consorts while gallivanting out in California. It is an amazing selection of Victorian women, and leaves no doubt that Sam Clemens was a connoisseur of beauty.

 Mark Twain's first crush, and inspiration for the 

legendary Becky Thatcher of Tom Sawyer's neighborhood.

 This is a rare image of her when she was near the

 age described in Twain's iconic tale.

 Ella Creel was Sam Clemens's cousin, and no 

doubt his first experience of shock and awe 

and infatuation with the opposite sex. 

Perhaps the most famous madam in the west, Mark Twain

 no doubt knew Julia very early in his career when they

 both were operating their trades in Virginia City, Nevada.

Mine is the portrait on the left.

 The tintype in the middle started this whole avalanche

 of Twain's world. Mark Twain's most scandalous female 

associate was Adah Menken of New Orleans; actress,

 singer,equestrian performer and writer, and probably 

Confederate spy who befriended him while he

 covered her sensational shows in California... 

She wanted him to write her biography.

 One of the most beautiful women in Twain's social 
circle was Libby Custer, widow of famed Indian fighter
 General George Armstrong Custer. After his untimely
 death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Twain encouraged
her to write her memoirs, which she did. She named it 
Tenting on the Plains, and Twain's publishing 
company published it.

THE ART CONNECTION

As an artist, the collecting of these wonderful,  historic tintypes was made doubly satisfying by the emergence of scores of images to do with artists... and especially American artists who I had personally admired. But even more exciting was, as big a cynic as Mark Twain was, he knew and loved some of my personal favorites. I cannot rule out that the artists in the "Twain collection" may have been assembled by his wife Olivia, as she was an art enthusiast, and in fact helped to found an art school in Hartford Connecticut.

Some has been written already as to the cultural affinity between the writings of Mark Twain and the canvases of Winslow Homer. I cannot find where he ever owned a single work by Homer, but publishers have married the two by using Homer's Americana on the covers of many of Twain's books.

 A strange, "up the nostril" shaved head view of 

Winslow Homer (center), perhaps a tintype"selfie"!

Several tintypes in this collection surfaced that appeared to be Winslow Homer, which I initially had struggled to identify as Wyatt Earp instead. There were a few large, half-plate tintypes in the collection... more expensive, requiring some kind of frame, half-plate tintypes which suggest a greater status or personal  importance to the owner... and this unusually large tintype of Homer may be an American treasure as well...

One can never know, given Twain's satirical mind, just what he loved and what he despised, as he loved most that which he could lampoon and get the most laughs. In spite of his inborn skepticism and incessant sarcasm, he loved, and even wrote his adoration for the work of Frederic Church.

One of the premier American landscapists, Twain actually 

visited his studio and corresponded with him. Twain's taste  

 in art was right in sinc with his readership. Mine is the

 larger one in the middle.

The Twain archives also reveal at least correspondence with one of my personal idols, western artist Frederic Remington. Remington was an avid outdoorsman and sportsman, and is caught here wearing a baseball uniform.

Remington (mine enlarged in the center, and far right)

 when still nimble enough to play. He was the father

 of the Western or "cowboy" artists.

Remington and Twain were peers. Both wrote for the leading publication in the country, Harper's Monthly. I have not found an instance where Remington might have illustrated one of Twain's articles, but it surely came up. What little I know about each man, each was too egotistical to reach out to the other. But the mere presence of this photo suggests a quiet if not friendly competition between these two giants in American culture.

Connecting the Monolithic Dots- with no help!

 Son of the legendary Allan Pinkerton, it was William who relentlessly pursued Jesse James, and was blamed for the explosion which blew off the arm of the outlaw's mother. My photo of him is a full length portrait on a cabinet card, in the center, closer detail of his face on the left.

It was about a year ago when I became engrossed in the purchase of a lifetime... actually purchases of a lifetime, what you now peruse as “The Stubborn Flame,” which took almost a year to complete. During that time I became so excited and confident about my acquisitions that I began to reach out to some of those whom I presumed were the acknowledged “experts” in the field of American history, some local and some regional, to try to get some verification.

I soon found out how hard it was to get anyone to even look at my finds, much less agree about their importance. So many frauds were floating around in the stream of historical imagery that everyone I contacted reacted with ambivalence or skepticism. I have to add, that my earliest guess was that these tintypes were the remnants of some kind of law enforcement rogues gallery, probably of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Over time I learned that the images were formal portraits, and thus not the correct type to be “rogues.” Sadly, this incorrect assumption alone was enough of a red flag to distance my skeptics.

 Courageous and cunning Robert McParland, the undercover Pinkerton detective who ensnared a whole gang of terrorists in Pennsylvania. Mine is the tintype in the center.

I contacted some of the history authors whom I had met during my career as an artist, those whom I knew at least respected me as competent in my chosen field of historical illustration. Surely one of them could use some the images in their various projects... but again, aloofness and disbelief. I would have become discouraged, except the images just kept coming. There was no time to let my feelings interfere with the amazing collection gathering on my living room table. Soon I transported them to a safety deposit box, so sure was I about their value.

One of the authors I contacted was Max McCoy, by email. Mr. McCoy's name may not ring a bell, but his most famous creation will: Indiana Jones. I was not acquainted enough with him at the time to even know that! I approached him because he had published an article about Albert Bigelow Paine (Mark Twain's biographer) in The New Territory magazine, perhaps the first of its kind, which shed light into Paine's darker personal and literary secrets. Through the historical persons appearing in my collection, I had begun to deduct that my collection was possibly the combination of Paine's and Twain's life stories. It seemed unlikely at the time that either of the men might have known all of the famous individuals whose images were piling up each week. And I suspected that McCoy could help orient me to what I had discovered so far.

IF I am right, a very rare tintype, (center) probably made from

 an earlier Ambrotype, of the beautiful mother of outlaws

 Jesse and Frank James.

McCoy was fairly underwhelmed with my project, did not see what I saw, and our correspondence went no further. It kind of disappointed me, because Max McCoy was a treasure trove of knowledge about the pond I was wading in, and could have saved me a lot of time...and since his recusal I have learned just how much. There were several families or groups which the tintypes seemed to be representing, the Samuel Clemenses, the Pinkerton Detectives, and bizarrely, the Jesse Jameses... whom McCoy would have recognized immediately- what I have just recently figured out, that they were all ASSOCIATED in someway.

A tintype and a carte de visit of Jesse James
(numbered) as a boy and as an adolescent.
His ears made his visage unique.

It turns out Max McCoy had also written a book based on papers probably typed by Albert Bigelow Paine, which suggested that Mark Twain and Jesse James were actually known to one another, and Twain had considered writing the life story of the famous outlaw. This was not known to me until recently. McCoy took a charred and tattered old manuscript and finished what Twain or Paine had started. According to his account, rumors of Jesse James's death had also been greatly exaggerated, and he tracked down Mark Twain as an old man... long after he was supposedly dead, and proposed that the beloved folklorist interview him and tell the true story of his life and crimes.

Frank James and (Half) Sisters

The tintype on the far right (enlarged in the middle) is mine, 

now digitally restored- as are most of the images you see.

 They were so dingy that it took some enhancement for the 

average viewer to even consider the similarities that I saw. 

Three of the four individuals in the photo are very 

believably members of the James family.  These were such 

rare and personal photos, it means whoever was given 

custody had paramount access to the Jameses. They are 

evidence of a more than casual acquaintance with the 

most clandestine of clans.

Knowing this fact, that even Max McCoy thought that Twain and James were solidly connected, sure would have lit a fire under my dampened ashes... but I had to relocate to Bell County and other more urgent distractions, and the find of the century and the facts to substantiate it would have to wait for almost a year. 

Not only could McCoy have told me that Mark Twain was very interested in Jesse James, even invested in him, and might easily have compiled a stash of James family photographs, but that he also was a huge fan of detective stories, and wrote at least two lampoons of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The dots were begging to be connected.

It is also easy to imagine that the Pinkertons gladly submitted materials for Twain's books, after their patriarch Allan Pinkerton had passed away and no longer published his detective mysteries... at least until they saw with great angst that he had aimed his merciless sword of satire at them and their reputation. 

Jim Younger, the bruiser of the James-Younger gang. He was wounded but survived the "Great Northfield Raid" and was captured.
 

Now, after all of this time, I am connecting the dots. The major groups I had randomly purchased were all legitimately associated through Mark Twain! The rare if not impossible discovery that McCoy and others would not, could not believe, has grown geometrically, in size and importance. And even they would have to wonder, if I was going to imagine or fabricate a find of antique tintypes, that I would find, little by little, images of individuals who were not only related, but groups of people which were amazingly associated with one another... so much so that history has provided me the unmistakable provenance of the whole collection.

 

 Of "Dr. Livingston, I presume" fame, Sir Henry Stanley

 and his wife were often guests at the Clemens home.

The odds of finding so many related people, most of which I had never seen or heard of before, is actually less than the minute odds of finding hundreds of amazing and convincing look-alikes of the same people, all from one source, and all in a fairly short period of time. The odds of reality are slim, the odds of a parallel universe are much less.

 A very young Albert Einstein.

So I concede, this is a mountain of suggestive material... so I will no doubt be wrong about some of my identifications. But I will be right about hundreds of them... and so I propose to you that this collection is the most exciting, the most rare and probably the most revealing Victorian image gallery offered in modern times. Many of the persons you will see here, as famous as they are, may have never been photographed but a few times... In some case the photos here of them are better than any extant. I know that is a mouthful, and it sounds arrogant to me.. but after checking and re-checking, (because I hate rejection and I hate embarrassment even worse), I am sure they are what they are. I welcome your assessments and reactions. Just be courteous in your observations!

Jean D'Arc: Open and Closed- and opened again

Maybe today the world needs reminding of otherwise average people who make history- too often in a negative way, causing unnecessary tragedy- all because of extraordinary skepticism, intolerance, demonization, and hatred... and the only reliable redemption possible from these things. 

 

“It's a small, small world...” We all used to enjoy that happy little song made famous at Disneyland. But the past few years it has become my theme song. This story inadvertently began with my research for a major painting, which ended up instead as a small book in one of my blogs, called Who In The Blazes Was Joan Of Arc? The painting was postponed indefinitely.

After reading 20 or so books about her, I came to the disappointing and painful conclusion that I did not want to make the same mistake that Mark Twain and others had made, that of lionizing an enigmatic and confused young farm girl who had gotten involved in political tectonics that were way out of her league. And then because of superstition and treachery, she was burned at the stake, satisfying British revenge and Roman Catholic intolerance. After that in-depth, 8-month rabbit trail, I was done with Joan, and a bit psychologically charred from all those various graphic accounts of her immolation. Joan and I gladly parted ways.

Or so I hoped. Not too long afterwards I suffered my second heart attack, which really put me down. Afterwards I was weak and depressed and needed something fairly effortless to occupy my mind, so I began to spend many hours surfing for images on Ebay. 

 (Left -Rt) Charlie Langdon, his sister Olivia, and his new friend Sam Clemens.

 I love old photographs... especially the really old ones called Daguerreotypes, and their offspring known as Ambrotypes and tintypes, which are fairly cheap. The first forms of photography, all of these were made as direct mirror images on a prepared surface; copper, glass, tin, whatever, with no negatives for reproduction. Sometimes they were made in multiples, but they were usually very limited in number, often one of a kind. And backwards.

It's a long story, which unfolds here, but the gist of it is that after purchasing a couple of hundred tintypes, a handful at a time, from a guy in Florida, thinking that they may have been a collection of famous people, I eventually became convinced that the images, at least a large portion of them, had once belonged to Mark Twain. The reason being that around a dozen or more of these tintypes were of Samuel Clemens and his family and their associates. Also famous writers, actresses, artists, spies, the most famous and creative people in America at the time. But that was not all.

This collection then led across the sea, as many of the images were of the French artists and their families and associates, where Mark Twain had spent 13 years researching, among other things, his book on Joan of Arc. Europe had become such a refuge for the Clemens that he took his wife Olivia back there when she became terminally ill. And that was where she died. The images of the French artists are very rare and if I am right about their identities, they belong in the Louvre.

As I researched this growing image collection, it became clear it must be an amalgamation of several photograph collections, compiled for almost 40 years. Amazingly, I was able to construct a story which would explain it all.

 

Another famous American writer had become the trustee of all things Twain, and he was also a career photographer. Early in his life, Albert Bigelow Paine was an itinerant photographer, and later a very successful writer of high-profile biographies and children's books. He not only wrote Mark Twain's biography, he also wrote his own version of Joan of Arc!

All through the exciting acquisition of this collection, Joan kept reappearing, as I assembled an All-Star Victorian photo album and researched the possible former owners, two of the most important Joan biographers. Suddenly I had to read everything written by or about them... to uncover clues about possible connections of these photos to them.

Somehow I felt that this saga was going in circles, but not wanting to ignore the road signs, I finally picked up Paine's book about Joan, which I had wrongly assumed was just a paraphrase of Twain's affectionate ode to her. This morning I finished my 21^st book on Joan, A. B. Paine's The Girl In White Armor. And I have to say, it was the best. And this admission does not come easy, as I have become somewhat of an expert about Joan.

Having already made numerous negative deductions about Paine, I did not want to like his book. You see, time and scholarship have not been kind to Albert Bigelow Paine, who successfully hid his darker side from an adoring public, all while leaving almost indiscernible traces of his deceptions, lies, Bigamy, and probable literary fraud. Scholars today have suggested that after the death of Samuel Clemens, Paine released unpublished Twain materials which were severely doctored by himself, calling much of his management of the Twain legacy into question. It was a case of one scamp scamming off of his mentor scamp.

But the two were peas in a pod, Twain the master of Americana who questioned Divine Intelligence, and Paine the master of intrigue who doubted men's intelligence. They were the voice of America and its eternal echo. They may have masterminded one of the greatest snow jobs ever perpetrated on the world.  Their friendship was based on passion for the story, cynicism and billiards. Upon meeting they immediately and completely understood and appreciated one another. And strangely, counter-intuitively, they both loved Joan.

It seems both Twain and Paine found some wonderful authenticity in the “Maid of Orleans,” that they could not perceive in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Both men struggled with issues of Faith and integrity, and plain old American idealism. But they fell wistfully into line as Joan of Arc fans, solidifying her legend and gathering many friends in France in the process.

Yes, I love Joan too, but my affection is tempered with pity and some firm caveats. With my Fundamentalist Christian background, I am less forgiving of Joan's doctrinal and supernatural confusions. Joan messed up, and even her “Voices” would have said so. True, she went when God sent her, but she also went when God did not. The latter proved disastrous for her. Joan violated too many taboos for a prophetess and had no New Testament prototype as a warrior liberator. She was “out there.” But I suppose my two senior Joan experts had no problem with her mistakes as they had made so many.

 Captured and desperate to continue the

 liberation of France, Joan leaped from

 a tower, which almost killed her.

So here is my point. God, the designer of all things, led me, I believe, to a difficult conclusion about Joan which caused me to intellectually recoil from immortalizing her, or do anything to point to her as any kind of role model. In fact I was led to reject Twain's sappy book on her, a subjective whitewash, just as his fans and the critics had done when it was released. Believe me, I WANTED to paint that epic scene, especially after spending so much time preparing to do it. The digital sketch at the top was my first confident step in creating the ultimate Joan of Arc. But I would not give in to sentimental tradition or heartwarming myth. Or to Joan's desperate cries, SIX times she cried out the Lord's name, as she was burned alive.

That sounds hard-hearted even to me. And now, through these wonderful tintypes, and the absolutely scandalous men they probably belonged to, and their affectionate accounts about Joan, I have been strangely dragged back to consider her cause.

This blog is a kind of technological prayer. A stream of conscious revelation of my more interesting struggles. I have shared in other blogs about my art- that recently, after considerable hesitation, I completed a commissioned portrait of Stonewall Jackson. Here was another legendary military personality I did not want to unduly edify. Yet as I looked into Jackson's life, I found a dear Human Being. An amazing talent, a devoted patriot, (to his understanding), and yet hated and demonized in many circles during his life and ever since. 

 Stonewall Jackson: His Legacy and His Destiny

In finding the painting that I could do of him, in good conscience, I learned that maybe it is as much my job to recognize that which is redeemable, as it is to avoid that which is abhorrent.

What was done to Joan was abhorrent. She was after all, only nineteen years old. A naive, idealistic child. I have to believe that God easily forgave her missteps and delusions. So I must too. Whether I paint her or not.

Obviously, I am hard headed. Thank you Lord for not giving up. It has been epic fun getting here. A magic carpet ride. In this small, small world where legendary infidels can hassle my convictions and stir my soul from beyond the grave. Where books and photography and the Internet can all gang up on me and we can all have a teachable moment.

I had almost allowed my art to become judgment with a capital J, a bastion of Godly perfection, in a world that has not known perfection since Eden. Perhaps like many Americans, I have grown unrealistic and expect too much.

We live in a critical and perfectionist age with 24 hour cameras and instant exposure, giant eyes and black hearts, where no person can stand the light of inspection. We expect so much and suffer so little. Christianity teaches that we all fall short of the Glory of God. On that this generation is quick to agree. But Christ also teaches Grace, something in short supply in our culture.

Grace means unmerited favor... undeserved blessings. And top of the list, FORGIVENESS is and has always been the key to Grace. God Loves and forgives us, and we receive His Grace. We cannot continuously enjoy or receive His Grace if we will not readily give it ourselves. So peace in our country requires a culture of habitual forgiveness.

Of course, what condemned Joan was her unforgiveness of the English, her skepticism of their spiritual paradigm, her preference to death over submission in any way to them. They did not take her loathing and threats very well, and well, reacted even worse. It was an earthly battle of wills, and theirs was bigger and stronger.

Many if not most of the folks pictured on this site were caught up in like tragedies in some way or another. Artists and writers are passionate and often get carried away with emotions and causes. Sometimes even farm girls get caught up in social hysteria. Sweet Joan got involved in her country's emergency and actually led armies to embarrass and vanquish the British, just waving a banner. She confessed at her trial that she had never killed even one man. But pure as she was, she was completely devoted to a corrupt king... a spineless, jealous king who refused to negotiate her ransom... she was a national treasure wounded twice in battle to save a country which would turn its back on her.

What a terrible calling if in fact God did send her!

Protestants have believed for at least 500 years that God sent His Son as the one and only, and the last sacrifice for our redemption. Absolutely nothing additional is required from us. And God has rarely if ever required of us to sacrifice our children. His calling to His service has rarely required submission of teenagers to death in a hopeless cause. A veritable casting of pearls before swine. There have never been battles required to be fought where many thousands would perish, to embolden a corrupt government, and place a veil upon the whole country for half a millennium. Protestants perceive a progressive God, where in most cases His plan makes sense, if not in the conception, as time unveils His Will and the genius of it. Sure God calls all of his children to some form of personal sacrifice. But it is always for the enlargement and glory of His Kingdom. And when He has... He has never sent them with swords or guns.

 

And such is the real tragedy that Joan or her king or the French people never realized. In Joan's zeal and military success, she fortified the French Catholic Church, the only authority besides God whom she ever yielded to, which mostly doubted and second-guessed her. After her martyrdom in English hands, they did not bother to reverse her sentence and restore her reputation until 20 years later. Joan was a mere pawn in a game among ruthless royalty and elites. If God sent her into that, knowing her fate... knowing that a French victory over Britain was sealing her and France's spiritual potential... to effectively place a lid on His Kingdom, that would have been unlike the God I know.

MOREOVER, Eventually France became an apostate nation, and partly because Joan's victories which prevented the spread of the English and German Enlightenment. She could never have suspected as much, but Joan had repelled the one hope of future spiritual reformation for her people. It was a religious movement soon to sweep eastern Europe and the British Isles. A movement which would forever brand the progressive, prosperous countries of Europe which were able to spread the Gospel, establish democracy and defend both. And feed the world. Till this day.

Whatever Joan's patriotic assumptions, France missed the boat, missed the mercies of Grace, and her legacy did not serve the long term progress of the Kingdom Of God well. Later the French Revolution annihilated whatever was left of her influence with class warfare that nearly exterminated men of means, or education, or spirituality. It was what revolution looks like when executed by godless anarchists. It was passionate and bloody and lawless. It was as unjust and tragic as any wrongs which inspired it.

Still, our popular writers found in Joan a charming narrative which inspired them. Dozens of books and movies have made Joan a household icon. She became a Saint early in the Twentieth Century... but she was already the patron saint of women's suffrage. As her legend morphed, generations added their own useful interpretation of her courage and sacrifice. But under it all, Joan was... a dear young woman...

... A precious soul who had to face God like all of us will, and answer for her life, and her motives, and she will do it someday under the protective Grace of God.

Joan may also be the patron saint of flawed visionaries, unqualified leaders who step into the fray of public struggles, because no one else would. They sometimes, often times make mistakes. And they are often as surprised as the rest of us at the unintended consequences of their actions. But where would we be without them?

Yes, someday Joan will face God. Someday when they separate the good from the bad, the doers from the naysayers. The soldiers from the whiners. The courageous and willing from the ambivalent and useless. And whatever her Eternal fate, Joan will stand tall among all men and women. She will have no regrets. Very little shame. And most of her enemies will not be there... because few of them would have made the cut.

Joan will be standing almost alone in her class, whatever it may be called. She might be one of the few mortals worthy to kneel at the front of the line, in spite of her blemishes, and greet the King of Kings, who will judge all mankind. I can see her with her white banner, bowing in her armor on her black steed, as he kneels, his mane touching the ground... of celestial clouds, the glory of the King of Kings blinding everyone as it reflects off of her steel breastplate.

Now THAT would be a painting!

Now, back to the tintypes.

The Proof! A Random Identification

Perhaps a year after this incredible tintype cascade began, I finally got a tangible clue, a fact which could prove everything. A tintype was offered for sale which actually had an I.D.... and a whopper of one.

 Master James G. Blaine Jr. and Pinkerton Supervisor Robert Linden.

Offered on ebay, by the same seller from whom I had purchased hundreds of images, was an intriguing photo of a bearded man and a little boy. I had already been studying the Pinkerton detectives because of a number of old photographs already acquired from this person, so I immediately recognized Robert J. Linden, Pinkerton Supervisor who was based in Philadelphia. It was Linden who was in charge of the the famous investigation of the “Molly Maguires,” an Irish terrorist group who had made life hard for the Pennsylvanian “Captains of Industry” in the 1870's. Linden and his men brought the terrorists to Justice. It was his face, but unfortunately he was not the person identified on the back of the photo.

Written on the photo was the name of James G. Blaine Jr.. He was the namesake of “Blaine of Maine,” U.S. Congressman, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State and even 1884 Presidential candidate James G. Blaine. Junior was born in 1868 and appears in this photo to be around eight or nine years of age... placing the time of the pose sometime around 1877.

This was when the Molly Maguires were captured and prosecuted under Robert Linden's leadership around 1877 and 1878. The connection here is that the crimes perpetrated by the Irish- American miners were done against two companies, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Mining Company, in which James G. Blaine possibly had interests, if only political. Blaine had invested in Railroad stocks and was so compromised in these activities that he was even accused of taking bribes from the Union Pacific Railroad. These accusations and their veracity nearly cost him the Republican nomination for the presidency, and probably cost him the election.

But before all of that happening, It would have been considered a great honor for Linden and this little boy, the son of the congressman and railroad advocate and investor to be allowed to pose with the famous Pinkerton man, and especially after twenty men were hung for murders and terrorism against the mines and railroads of Pennsylvania.

Of course, I knew little of this when I purchased the image, only that James G. Blaine was someone concrete whose life paths might then prove my identification of Linden, a truly famous lawman. That Blaine and Linden might have known each other is a safe presumption, and given the name of Blaine Jr. on a tintype which very likely includes Robert J. Linden, this was the first assurance that I had been correct in the other Pinkerton identifications of previous purchases.

This one tintype suggested many things. If it were related to the others, and from the same collection, it suggested that I had stumbled into a photograph collection which very possibly belonged to an influential person, or at least someone akin to one. Someone who at the very least knew the Blaines and perhaps this famous Pinkerton man.

My own experience and reasoning told me that people are more likely to label a photo with the name of someone less familiar, someone who might be significant, but not a name common among them. Someone they or others might be less likely to recognize. People notoriously failed to label individuals everyone in their immediate circle were assumed to recognize.

So then I launched my theory forward... that this was just one of a batch of photos related to other Pinkerton men, collected by a Pinkerton man or Pinkerton staff person or someone interested in or associated with Pinkerton men. Posing with the Blaine boy was a minor honor for the Pinkerton men, who protected and prosecuted the most famous people in the Country. The photo fit well with a dozen or so others I had purchased which featured various famous Pinkerton detectives, and in fact many members of the Pinkerton family.

Comparing the others, which featured the most noted Pinkerton operatives known to the public, I concluded that it might have been a collection made by one of their fans, a person influential enough to ask for and attain these rare tintypes. It was a clever strategy, as tintypes had fallen out of favor, were considered to be of inferior quality, and anyone who had been photographed would part with them, having had better photographs made. These images might easily have been requested by someone like Speaker Blaine, or Linden, but also someone like Mark Twain, of whom I had also acquired images as well of his family and friends.

The circle of possibilities was tightening. Almost all of the images could have been of persons known to Mark Twain, if not people he had actually met, and perhaps even traded photos with him. Mark Twain lived conveniently in New York, and regularly entertained the most famous, most influential persons of the Victorian age, right in his living room. Once he combined his legacy with his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, that circle widened to encompass the most important personalities known to Western Culture. Paine wrote biographies of the most prominent people Twain knew, including Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist who had his own private and public war with... James G. Blaine. In fact it was Nast's cartoons which were credited to have destroyed Blaine's candidacy.

Now it was about this time that I had to really ask myself some hard questions. I was either having some incredible luck, or this tintype “treasure trove” was unfolding like a bizarre delusion in some kind of parallel universe. What were the chances of my identifying scores of photographs, without any ID's, which were believable look-alikes of very famous people, who, and this was important, knew or were in some way related to one another?

This became a maddening investigation of those popular “degrees of separation.” Truly the Victorian era was a “small world.” And now it was swallowing me.

The odds were almost impossible. It became hard to believe that these images were NOT what they appeared to be! I had spent most of my adulthood scanning Ebay for rare images. You find a rare image of a historical person about one in 5000. In the meantime, there are hundreds of look-alikes. Old photographs which look like somebody you recognize, but which do not stand the test of close scrutiny. I had found that first one, totally by accident while killing time, and since then had become addicted to daily scanning the auctions with the hunch that there were probably more. And I was right. Eventually it became almost commonplace to discover the uncommon.

Finally, after so many purchases and educated guesses, all without any authentication, I had an image that claimed, somewhat obscurely, to be of someone plucked from the ashes of history. James G. Baine Jr.. A young solemn-faced lad who grew up under the shadow of one the most powerful men in the United States; Who as the son of such would have grown up around the most important and recognizable individuals to ever be captured on a tintype... the persons staring up at me from hundreds of tintypes...and little James G. Blaine was telling me that he and many of the others were unknown visages lost to history, and that I was not in some kind of self-delusional odyssey.

Little James G. Blaine Jr. had become my historical link to a fabulous find, of epic importance, and the doorkeeper to obscure or unknown histories and mysteries. They would emerge as I researched the images, and at least for me, would not just bring history alive, but would fill my life as if I had stepped into Alice's Wonderland of oddball historical oddities. The faces were familiar, but the stories they told were as original as the tintypes they slept in.

It was huge and yet it was a microcosm of extraneous history, which nobody would care to exhume after all these years. Little details about giants in our American story, details that only their children would remember or cherish... now resurrected for my- and your edification.

Somehow I think, or at least I fantasize that these images were entrusted to me because I could see them, enter into them, and ultimately glean one last morsel of wisdom from each them. And primarily because I was able and willing to share them with you.

So here you are.

THE CLAIM

Without a doubt, this blog makes a remarkable claim, and one hard to believe, even for the blogger.

 TWO images among several I found, 
(1 & 2 on the left) of Charlie Siringo, 

Pinkerton detective and western writer. 

The rest are provided for comparison.

I ran across a rare and important cache of tintypes, featuring some of the most important personalities of the Victorian era; Mark Twain, Allan Pinkerton, many American and French artists, even Albert Einstein.

They were for sale, unidentified, but I thought they were fairly easily recognized, with a little research. I have posted this blog in hopes that others who acquired images from the same person would find this and join me in the quest to understand the history behind these wonderful images.

For Open Minds Only!

It has been years now since I stumbled upon the “Stubborn Flame.” Recovering from a heart attack, I had been killing time surfing on ebay for antique photographic images. One day I recognized a face on an old tintype offered by an image dealer and the saga began. After weeks of pondering, I finally gave in and purchased the image and the rest is the unknown and perhaps controversial history which unfolds here. 

 I came across this tintype of Ada Menken, 

the Victorian version of Madonna, and 

I was hooked.

What started as a chance recognition ended up growing into a 200+ image collection, all purchased from one image dealer, who hadn't the slightest idea about the identities of his images. Once I recognized one, another related image would surface in an adjacent auction, and gradually I began to detect some related themes and circles of famous people. Then the circles began to intersect. The first image was an actress, and most were elites, artists and writers and women suffragists. That was when I named this project the Stubborn Flame. You see I connected all these individuals with the burning seed of creativity, the universe of human genius, the one which at times is barely recognizable from the pit of insanity. The one which at times spawns criminal masterminds and their able nemesis and equal, the intrepid lawman. These too showed up in the collection. 

 Old dingy tintypes yes... but of Old West legends!

Hopefully facial recognition technology can be 

used to satisfy skeptics.  

My benefactor eventually auctioned tens of thousands of items, and probably over 5000 historic images over a years' time. I suppose in a collection that large, there were bound to be a few famous people. But these were not just famous people, they were the most important people to Western Culture in the Nineteenth Century. After a year amassing the Stubborn Flame, I finally began to understand what it was. The person who sold the individual images to me a few at a time could not help at all with any background or origin for any of them. He claimed to have gathered this staggering collection over the years, and offered no geographic affinity or provenance. 

A few images among his auctions the seller suspected were famous outlaws, but no one would pay his asking price. He claimed there were old tags attached to some of these images which gave him clues to their identity. But eventually I became convinced that the tags he had did not go with the images he was offering as six-figure historic outlaw tintypes. Meanwhile I was gathering truly historic and significant images from him. Some in my newly acquired collection fit his tags. And I had the eye for familiar faces, and their identities could be somewhat deduced and even proven in time. And if I was right, he had sold me many authentic, one-off tintypes of famous western outlaws and lawmen and other high-profile Americans.

 SEVERAL possible tintypes (numbered) of Jesse James. 

I know... what are the odds???

So I want to share this thrilling process with you. It was absolutely the most exciting thing I was ever a part of. Every day for about a year I scoured over the hundreds of auctions offered by this one person, looking for new listings, waiting to snag them by being the high bidder. Researching most of them before I even bid on them, I knew exactly who they were long before they showed up in my mailbox.

And eventually I discovered an intriguing story behind them. It is not a commonly known story. In fact, I think very few people know what I will reveal on this website. If you are interested in Mark Twain, Civil War spies, Pinkerton detectives, the French Impressionists, or the Old West, you will find this epic stumble of mine fascinating.

Towards the end of the purchases, which came to an abrupt end, I had identified not only the owner of this collection but one of the photographers... if I am right. And they were one and the same. There was only one person it could be. The geographic associations of the famous people in the tintypes gave me a roadmap of one very famous Victorian photographer and writer. And strangely, intriguingly, perhaps intentionally, a man almost totally ignored by literary scholars.

Only one man had traveled extensively throughout the South after the Civil War, as an itinerant photographer, operated a photographic studio in the Midwest, moved to New York and became Mark Twain's biographer, and traveled to France researching Joan of Arc. I believe this is, in part the photographic journal of Albert Bigelow Paine, a collection he amassed while writing some of the most important biographies of the cultural iconclasts of his era, and many made by himself. Many were no doubt loaned for publication purposes and never returned. Some were personal family photographs of the Clemens family, made before Paine was born, or had learned to use a camera.

Albert Bigelow Paine, henceforth named just A.B., was the most secretive, the most versatile, the most cunning, and perhaps the most scandalous character in American literature. Sure others did more sensational things, wrote more outrageous books, but none could equal A.B., who managed to (I believe) photograph the Most Wanted outlaws of the time (probably for law enforcement), build a thriving photograph supply in Kansas, then suddenly switch to writing biographies and immediately cast a spell on Mark Twain and his whole family, then parley his New York associations into coveted assignments putting the permanent spin on Lillian Gish, Thomas Nast and other Nineteenth Century icons, whose legacies sometimes required a bit of spit and polish for posterity. All while becoming the foremost children's writer of his day, and in spite of the fact that he had abandoned his wife and family and business in Kansas and remarried his second wife without the trouble of divorce.

A.B. Was the first PR man, the vanguard of spin doctors. And as spin doctor he first operated on himself. Like Twain, A.B. found a ready following in France, where he seems to have shadowed everything Mark Twain did, even, according to the French, besting him in his own rendition of Joan of Arc. Twain's Joan was a bust, Paine's a triumph. It was at this time that one or both of them made or collected a stunning and extremely personal photographic record of the French Impressionists and their families. They are here too. Monet, Manet, Degas, Cassatt, even Van Gogh. Even Monet's wives and children. Even beautiful Berthe Morisot- even her first lover, sculptor Aime Millet. Paine must have bummed that photo, made before he owned a camera. A.B. was the ingratiater extraordinaire.

Berthe and Aime

 

 Each photograph has been painstakingly researched, 

in an effort to make sure of the identities and weed out 

mere look-alikes.

We have almost no written record of any of Paine's adventures. Only his published manuscripts. We know he was in these places. We know he wrote those books... scores of them. Yet nobody ever wrote the biography of the biographer. A.B. avoided interviews, gave one-paragraph biographical sketches. Nobody ever unearthed his secrets or improprieties. Not until history had long shed her dust on his sizable legacy. Nobody saved or protected his photographs either. Otherwise I would not have some of them.

Or at least I think do. You be the judge.