Photograph of a Street Abacus Seller, Russia, ca. 1860's

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

In my travels in and out of imagery and books, I've kept a small space allocated in what is left of my memory palace for images of the working poor and the laboring classes.  Most of the world's population of course has been and still is composed chiefly of the daily (and not so) laborer, but if you were to measure images that were made of these folks while at work or with the tools of their trade, and compare it to the rest of the images of more-exalted people spending their time doing more-exalted things, I would guess that the images of the working classes would be vastly outweighed by the rest, at least in the ancinet to early-modern times (of say 1925)--that is why it is so very interesting to see third-quarter 19th century photographs of these people.

This image was made by William Carrick (1827-1878, born in Scotland but who spent his life chiefly in Russia) in the 1860's, and is found at the National Gallery of Scotland, here.  Carrick made important contributions to the ethnography and the history of photogaphy, documenting the lifestyle and costume of Russian peasants in the country.  It is probable that he made his series cartes de visite images of itinerant trades people as a sort of postcard to the tourist and taveling class--but what happened of course is that he recorded in great detail bits of everyday life that was in general invivible to the main sttream of people who were in the image-making class.  And so Carrick produced images of knife sharpeners, and tool sellers, and milk haulsers, and woodcarvers and hackmen and chimney sweeps and so on, pictures of the people who made the city run.  I was particularly struck by this image of a boy selling abacuses/abaci--Im not sure that I 've seen a photograph/engraving of a street vendor of this sort of instrument, but here one is--a boy in the 'tween years, wearing boots way too big, with a woven basket full of abacuses/abaci. (The varities here have two ranks of four beads--one for quarter-rubles and the other for quarter kopeks--while the other wires hold ten beads apiece.)

Maybe the boy isn't a 'tween--maybe he's younger than that. Maybe the boy is a girl.  In any event, the basket looks heavy, and I'm sure the child returned home with a weary back at the end of the day. 

Other images by Carrick can be found at LuminousLint.com; a short biography of Carrick is available at Oxford Art Online..

 

Comments

[Ray Girvan]

Very cool! I wonder how much abacuses cost, relatively? Is he the equivalent of a pocket calculator seller, or a tablet computer seller?

[John F. Ptak]

Hi Ray! I think that the abacus salesperson must've been not un-common, and fairly cheap. They're wood/beads/wire. And they were needed.