The Photo Detective

In this episode, Maureen talks with Richard Thompson Ford, author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History.” They explore how fashion has been used throughout history as a way to reinforce class structures, gender roles, and social norms. Though dress codes are not as overt today, Richard explains how unwritten fashion rules still dictate what we wear.

• The “Straw Hat Riot” of 1922 erupted over men wearing straw hats past September 15th
• High heels originated as a masculine fashion, first worn by Persian horseback riders to lock into stirrups
• The flapper look in the 1920s was the first successful “rational dress” movement for women
• Tartans emerged as symbols of Scottish identity partly in reaction to British dress codes banning them
• Though we think fashion is casual today, there are still unwritten “uniforms” in many industries and social groups

Related Episodes:
Episode 91:Suffragists and Suffragettes: Fashion and the Vote 

Episode 155: Ancestral Handbag History with Curator Jessica Harpley

Links:

• Richard Thompson Ford 
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Richard Thompson Ford is Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He writes about law, social and cultural issues and race relations and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, CNN and Slate.   He is the author of the New York Times notable books The Race Card and Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality.  He has appeared on The Colbert Report, The Rachel Maddow Show, and The Dylan Rattigan Show.  He is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the board of the Authors Guild Foundation.  Quite to his surprise, he was one of 25 semi-finalists in Esquire magazine’s Best Dressed Real Man contest in 2009.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Northeast Historic Film is a nonprofit organization founded in 1986 to preserve and share historic films from Maine and the broader New England region. Based in Bucksport, Maine, their extensive collection includes home movies, local TV news, documentary films, and more. In this episode of the Photo Detective podcast, co-founders David Weiss and Jane Donnell discuss their mission to save endangered films and make them accessible through digitization and online platforms.

• They provide film preservation services like digitization for individuals and institutions. They have climate-controlled vaults for long-term storage of film.
• Home movies are a core part of their collection. These give insights into everyday life, local history, family dynamics, fashion, and architecture.
• Their theater shows archival clips before contemporary films. They also share films on their website, YouTube, etc.
• Filmmakers and documentarians contact them looking for footage to license. 
• They constantly get new donations as historic films surface from basements, attics, etc. Digitization is a key focus to make the films more accessible.

Related Episodes:

Episode 172: Vintage Film Finds with B. Wells Douglas  

Episode 65: Lost Films Needs Your Help with Eli Savada

Links:

• Northeast Historic Film 
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guests:

David S. Weiss is the co-founder and executive director of Northeast Historic Film, a non-profit moving image archive located in Bucksport, Maine.  Jane Donnell is the Marketing, Membership & Theatre Manager. Since its founding in 1986, NHF has built collections including more than 12 million feet of film and 10,000 hours of videotape.  The facility includes a 3-story climate-controlled moving image vault building, technical services section, study center and the Alamo Theater.  

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveTM helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week on the podcast, Maureen is joined by Elisabeth Smolarz, who created the Encyclopedia of Things. They discuss the items that define our lives and why we keep them. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 187: Building a Story with the Ancestry.com App

Episode 180: Photos, Memories, and English Genealogy with Emma Jolly

Links:

• Elisabeth Smolarz
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Elisabeth Smolarz was born in Poland and emigrated to Germany as a teenager. She creates photography, video, and social interactions investigating how consciousness, perception, identity, and value are formed by one’s cultural milieu.

Smolarz has exhibited her work nationally and internationally for two decades. Her most recent solo exhibition, the “Encyclopedia of Things,” was presented at the Morgan Lehman Gallery resulting from a multi-year project supported by National Endowment for the Arts; the Queens Council on the Arts; and the City Artist Corps Grants program, and featured on PBS on 03/14/20. The German publisher Spector Books published a monograph with a selection of 120 portraits from the “Encyclopedia of Things” in the summer of 2022. The monograph was reviewed by Brooklyn Rail this Spring. Additionally, her work has been presented in venues including The Bronx Museum of Art, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, EYEBEAM Center for Art + Technology, Lesley Heller Gallery, NARS Foundation, The Sculpture Center, Smack Mellon, The Queens Museum of Art, and Wave Hill, all New York City; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland; Oberwelt e.V Stuttgart, Germany; Baden Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; Photography Triennial Esslingen, Germany; Independent Museum of Contemporary Art, Cyprus; Reykjavik Photography Museum, Iceland; Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló, Spain; the Moscow Biennale, and others.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective TM, is joined by Greg French.

Greg is an antique photograph enthusiast who buys and sells his images, as well as lending images to projects such as the 1991 book “American and the Daguerreotype, as well as placing a rare stereoview of Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration in the Library of Congress.

Greg and Maureen talk about photo collecting, photo identifying, and all about what it means to be a photo enthusiast in this week’s episode.  

Related Episodes: 

Episode 207: An Underutilized Source: The Newberry Library 

Episode 204: Many Shades of Blue--Cyanotypes with Sabina Ocker 

Links: 

• Greg French Early Photography
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Greg French started collecting antique photographs in 1981, focusing on social history. As a collector, he lent images to seminal projects such as the 1991 book ‘American and the Daguerreotype’ by John Wood and the 1999 groundbreaking ‘Africans in America" documentary. Greg was one of three founding members of the ‘Mirror of Race’ project. Greg is affiliated with the Photographic Historical Society of New England. He chaired the Auction Committee of the Daguerreian Society for 17 years. Greg still toils away on eBay offering 21 auctions a week and many buy-it-nows at least 50 weeks a year. Meanwhile, he sells to museums around the country, with a particular interest in New England. 

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, an award-winning fashion historian and curator from Los Angeles, as well as the author of multiple books on fashion history.

The two discuss skirts and how one piece of clothing can help us learn about history and how the skirt showed changes in ideals toward women and fashion, as well as how we present ourselves to the world based on what we wear. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 210:  The Dress Diary of Anne Sykes with Dr. Kate Strasdin 

Episode 167: Victorian Photo Studio Secrets

Links:

• Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell 
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell is an award-winning fashion historian, curator, and journalist based in Los Angeles. She is the author of Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (Yale, 2015), Worn on This Day: The Clothes That Made History (Running Press, 2019), The Way We Wed: A Global History of Wedding Fashion (Running Press, 2020), Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style (Kent State University Press, 2022), and Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the 20th Century (St. Martin’s Press, 2022). She has written about fashion, art, and culture for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Politico, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal and has appeared on NPR, the Biography Channel, and Reelz, along with several podcasts. She was a 2020-21 NEH Public Scholar and a 2021-22 USC Libraries Fellow. As well as writing books and articles, she does writing, lecturing, curating, and consulting for museums, universities, and the entertainment industry.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

In this week’s bonus episode, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by author Amanda Quay Blount.

Amanda has recently been taking the literary scene in Rhode Island (and beyond) by storm, as she recently published Meet Me at the Biltmore, a historical look at The Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, which has been around for over 100 years, and seen many famous visitors, including John F. Kennedy and The Rolling Stones.

In this episode, she and Maureen discuss the hotel, Amanda’s writing process, what it means to fall in love with a historic building, and how to tell its story.

Related Episodes:

Bonus Episode: Chat GPT, Image Generators, and What You Need To Know

Bonus Episode: Tintypes Made for the Movies and Television with Rob Gibson

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Amanda Quay Blount is an author and historian who lives in Rhode Island. Amanda hails from New Jersey but came to the Ocean State in 2018 and was instantly enthralled by the historic allure of the city. Amanda holds a degree in History from Rutgers University and a Masters in Social Work and Community Development from Washington University in St. Louis. When she isn’t writing or researching, Amanda runs a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting adult literacy.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Heather Radke, whose first book Butts: A Backstory, has taken the world by storm. Don’t let the title fool you – this book takes a deep look into women’s history and fashion.

From bustles to Broadway to Coco Chanel, the two dive into the meaning of fashion and how it has shaped not only our history, but also our media, our photos, and so much more.

Related Episodes:

Episode 155: Ancestral Handbag History 

Episode 127: Toxic Dress and Criminal Dress 

Links:

• Heather Radke
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Heather Radke is a writer, teacher, and Contributing Editor and Reporter at Radiolab, the Peabody-award winning podcast from WNYC. Her critically-acclaimed first book, Butts: A Backstory, is now out in paperback.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective TM helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week on the podcast, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Amelia Soth. Amelia is a Wisconsin-based writer who has been writing the column “Cabinet of Curiosities” for JSTOR, which focuses on historical oddities.

Maureen and Amelia discuss her process in writing and finding these stories and how the nuanced parts of history can often lead to great discoveries.

Related Episodes:

Episode 150: Victorian Mourning Curiosities

Episode 61: Mourning Jewelry: Fact and Fiction 

Links:

• Cabinet of Curiosities on JSTOR
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Amelia Soth is a Wisconsin-based writer who is fascinated by (as Dr. Francis Young puts it) “the great tension of being a historian: [the fact that] people in the past were simultaneously both just like us and quite unlike us.” She also writes and edits for Mouse Magazine.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by fashion historian Darnell-Jamal Lisby, who is currently the Assistant Curator of Fashion at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the first to take this role.

They discuss the latest exhibition, “Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession,” and how the fascination with this time period has led to fashion influence throughout the centuries, as well as how it can impact your family photos. Darnell-Jamal and Maureen also delve into the history of fashion, fashion inspiration, and how something in our society and culture inspires and change trends. 

 Related Episodes:

Episode 186: Fashion History on Twitter   

Episode 155: Ancestral Handbag History 

Links:

• Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession 
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:
Assistant Curator of Fashion Darnell-Jamal Lisby joined the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2021. He develops fashion study projects across the museum’s various curatorial departments. Before coming to Cleveland, Lisby was an education coordinator at Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian Design Museum, where he organized the museum’s first virtual—and best-attended—symposium, “Fashion, Culture, Futures: African American Ingenuity, Activism, and Storytelling.” Lisby previously worked at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  He also taught in the Fashion Institute of Technology master’s program in fashion design.

About Maureen Taylor:
Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show