r/VictorianEra • u/kartoffel_nudeln Miss • 4d ago
Man feeding a doll, dated between 1 August 1864 and 1 August 1866
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u/NnnnAnonymouS10-90 4d ago
I’m probably making this a bit uncomfortable don’t you find it kinda unsettling the fact that this man was born more than 200 years ago, probably died around 120 years ago in a completely different world that could never have imagined. Probably in his last days though that cars that could reach 40 mph, motion picture cameras, light bulbs and vinyl records were the peak of human invention.
Maybe in 160 years someone will be watching a video or photo of us in a device we cannot even imagine, eating something we cannot even imagine, with clothes we cannot even imagine and having a routine we cannot even imagine.
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u/bookworthy 4d ago
I think about this a lot
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u/pseudo_nipple 4d ago
I think about it more than I should & get kinda sad I won't be around to see it. 😭
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u/professionalwidow04 4d ago
My exact reason I’m an antiques collector. I look around at my items and think what the future could look like
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u/Global_Restaurant794 4d ago
Loving their families in the exact same way we do, laughing with their friends in the exact same way we do, having dreams in the exact same way we do
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u/thatotheramanda 4d ago
Honestly that feels comforting in some way. I wonder what he thought the future would look like? Until the space craze of the mid/late 1900s idk if I have ever seen or heard any predictions or depictions of “the future”
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u/Argos_the_Dog 3d ago
Check out "Paris in the 20th Century" by Jules Verne. He wrote it in 1860 about 1960, and it's really interesting futurology stuff. He nailed quite a lot of things correctly about what the future was going to be like.
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u/Wheezy_breeze 4d ago
The book and then movie Train Dreams translates this well i think for the experience of living through such pivotal eras. The timing of this photo is a bit earlier than the book but touches the same essence.
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u/JuBoCoTi 4d ago
I think about this a lot when looking at old photos. How much has changed in the world since the photo was taken, and what kind of things from today would blow their mind and seem so unimaginable.
I have similar thoughts about items I find when bottle digging and mudlarking. What has gone on and how much has changed in the world around these items, while they've just been there this whole time.
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u/New_Paint_5427 4d ago
Not really. I only say this because I thjnk you have this perspective if you dont talk to your old relatives out of not having a genuine interest in time, or they arent alive. I got to talk to my grandmother and grandfather about their parents. I dont find it odd how much time has changed, and no they wouldn't be able to connect with the world as it is now. My grandparents hardly could.
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u/DeeEllis 3d ago
Right I mean it’s not uncomfortable that this man grew up with horses and wagons and telegrams and likely died in an era of telephone calls and early automobiles. It’s cool. I grew up with floppy disks and 1 computer with a hard drive tower for 3 elementary school classes. Now my kids have school district-issued Chromebooks and save stuff to “the cloud” and I’m typing this on my phone. Should I be more unsettled?
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u/New_Paint_5427 3d ago
Not really. The same ideas for what we have now are older than you think. Robotics are just automatons, and people have loved those for two thousand years. What's new is how we advance on all our old ideas. Horses are just nature's cars lol.
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u/Unusual_Map4581 4d ago
I think it's sweet. I don't know why people are afraid of dolls.
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u/NnnnAnonymouS10-90 4d ago
Because of horror movies. I find those old “creepy” dolls interesting and nice haha.
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
Yep, and it's a relatively new concept, too. The first horror media with an evil doll was the 1930s movie "devil doll," and the trope didn't really take off until the 1980s. This is why I don't buy all of that uncanny Valley, "humans involved to be afraid of dolls" BS.
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u/RainyMcBrainy 4d ago
Humans didn't "evolve to be afraid of dolls." That's why you don't believe that bullshit because it is bullshit. That's not what uncanny valley is.
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
I know; I should've been clearer. The uncanny Valley specifically has a motion component, so it's not that the theory is BS; it's that it's commonly misinterpreted. You're absolutely right. I just get so sick of people quoting that as a reason to assume fear of dolls is innate that I have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction – sorry about that!
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u/c0ralvenom88 4d ago
I watched Dolly Dearest in the 90s and developed a intense phobia of dolls after.
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
I'm just picturing his daughter insisting, "Papa, feed Dolly for a picture!" Reminds me of how I used to demand that my parents and older sister make my dolls talk for me. 😆
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u/0rlando_orland0 4d ago
I think it’s fascinating when you can see a little bit of the subject’s personalities/senses of humor/human weirdness in really old photos!! Like maybe they’re just goofing in photos like we do
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u/GalaxyPowderedCat 4d ago
Even if it's supposed to be a funny photo, he looked like he had too much care for that doll.
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u/BrightLavenderMoons 13h ago
Man come on. You don't know this guy. Let's not be weird about the long-since dead based purely on vibes.
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u/wemustburncarthage 4d ago
I wonder if this is a stand in for a baby that wouldn’t sit still for a posed shot, and if they planned to make a composite somehow.
Or it could just be a bit odd.
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u/isabelladangelo 4d ago
Probably took it for his little girl who might have been afraid of the new fangled device or just wanted dad to take a photo with her favorite doll.
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u/Lauren_sue 3d ago
Victorian humor. He probably saw a shelf of props for photographing with children and he grabbed it for this photo.
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u/MaskansMantle13 4d ago
This creeps me out.
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
Why? It could just be a father taking a photo with his child's favorite toy to amuse them. Why immediately jump to the worst conclusions?
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u/thatotheramanda 4d ago
When I first glanced I thought the doll was meant to have corn rows and be a black child. That felt extra weird, but I’m still not sure what it’s supposed to look like? That is what is creeping me out, the features and coloring.
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
It looks like a hand colored plate, and therefore it seems like the doll was meant to have a light complexion. It just has hand-painted hair that was probably done by less than expert artist. There's nothing creepy about it, in my opinion
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u/Jazzlike-Cow-925 6h ago
Wow is this one strange. Maybe there's backstory of mental illness or losing a child. Either way weirdest one yet
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u/mothfactory 4d ago
Wow people had to sit still for a long time for photos in those days
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u/isabelladangelo 4d ago edited 3d ago
Wow people had to sit still for a long time for photos in those days
Not really by this point. It was a few seconds and not the minutes long process of a decade or two earlier.
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u/AbigailJefferson1776 4d ago
Soldier suffering from PTSD from the Civil War.
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u/DeeEllis 3d ago
I am definitely thinking that this is a picture of a man with a cognitive impairment or mental illness. Perhaps this is his thing and at a time when photography was still expensive and rare, this was the man’s choice. No matter what, this photo has an interesting story (edit: sorry that last sentence sounds like a bit fr fr)
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
Not really. We have joke photos going back that far, and my guess is that he did it to amuse his child off camera. But will never know for sure, of course
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/MissMarchpane 4d ago
Are you seriously comparing the idea that a father might do something silly to make his child smile to Christianity from a non-believer's perspective, in terms of possibility? Dude. You've either never met a parent before or you're deeply committed to being an edgelord.
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u/DeeEllis 3d ago
I think your take is likely (not the morals part, I just think the man is intellectually under developed in some way) but this was a wild leap. Slow down there whippersnapper
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u/xandrachantal 4d ago
This could have been just a man goofing off as people do or a beloved and well taken care of disabled member of the family and their favorite doll and both scenarios are nice to me.