Long before photo booths gained popularity, Leonard Wiese of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois posed for this quaint series of photographs. Printed on a strip of flimsy paper, each individual photograph is about the size of a postage stamp. Leonard, the son of German immigrants Fred and Emma (Stübe) Wiese, was the youngest of five children,¹ although an elder sister had died before he was born.² He likely spent his early years at 46 Thomas Street,³ before his family moved to a new home, a large frame house, at 2502 North Neva Avenue.⁴ His father earned a living as a cigar maker, and must have done well in order to be able afford this home for his family.⁵

Leonard Wiese, ca. 1905, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2014.

Leonard looks to be about five years old in these photographs, dating them to approximately 1905. His hair is parted sleekly to the side, and he wears a white collared shirt with a patterned necktie. In the first three photographs, he poses formally while sitting upright in a chair. He has the hint of a smile in one, and artfully places his hand behind his head in another. In the final two photographs, he sports a pint-sized sailor cap while leaning playfully over the back of a wooden chair. His neat hair and dress suggest that these photographs were planned, yet the poses and setting seem more informal than what I would typically expect from a studio.

My first inclination, given the photo strip format, was to think that these photographs came from some sort of early predecessor to a photo booth, as automated photo booths didn’t spring up until 1926. Could there have been some sort of inexpensive arcade studio popular twenty years before? I also wondered if they might have been taken with an early model of a Kodak Brownie camera; another possibility is that they were proofs from which larger prints could be ordered. What do you think? This photo strip could easily have been cut apart and the individual photographs shared with friends or relatives. However, left intact, it allows a glimpse into several moments in Leonard’s boyhood in Chicago more than a century ago.

SOURCES
¹ “Cook County, Illinois, Deaths Index, 1878-1922,” index, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 March 2014), Lillie Wiese.
² 1910 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago Ward 27, enumeration district (ED) 1184, sheet 15-B, p. 9451 (handwritten), dwelling 254, family 306, Leonard Wiese; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 March 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T624, roll 270.
³ 1900 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago Ward 14, enumeration district (ED) 453, sheet 9-A, p. 320 (stamped), dwelling 64, family 164, Fred Wiese; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 March 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 623.
⁴ 1910 U.S. census, Cook Co., Ill., pop. sch., Chicago Ward 27, ED 1184, sheet 15-B, p. 9451, dwell. 254, fam. 306, Leonard Wiese.
⁵ 1910 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago Ward 27, enumeration district (ED) 1184, sheet 15-B, p. 9451 (handwritten), dwelling 254, family 306, Fred Wiese; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 March 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T624, roll 270.