Tips for Dating Old Photographs at Home

Here are some of Ellie Carlson's tips for preserving and dating photographs, which she recently shared in her lecture, "Dating Photographs Through Clothing," at the Des Plaines Historical Society.

• Use pencil to write information on the back of a photo. Ink will eventually damage it. For photos on resin coated paper, use a crayon or grease pen.
• Do not put stickers or labels on the back of a photo. The adhesive will oxidize, leaving a yellow stain on the front of the photo.
• Look to sleeves and skirts to identify women's clothing. This can help determine if it's grandma or great-grandma. 
• Ladies did not show their ankles until after 1910.
• If the only person in the photo is an older woman, it will be more difficult to determine the date as older women sometimes wore older styles.
• Children are helpful in dating photos if they can be identified as their ages are relatively easy to determine. Men and women did not age as gracefully in the past and can appear older than they are.
• Little boys often wore dresses until the age of 3, confusing them with females. As a general rule, boys would have their hair parted to the side and girls down the middle.
• Determine if the photo was taken for a special occasion, such as a wedding or funeral.
• Facial hairstyles on men were inspired by politicians of the era and other prominent men who may have had their photo in the newspaper. If a man is sporting a Toothbrush mustache in a photo, also known as the "Hitler" mustache after the German dictator, it was almost certainly taken before World War II.
• Use original source material like books, yearbooks and clothing catalogs. The Des Plaines Historical Society has yearbooks from the 1930s to the present and Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogs from the 1910s to the 1990s.