Circa 1846 Daguerreotype – Alexander Joy Cartwright debate

[Exhibitman]

To echo Brian and Jay, you really have to watch it with family provenance, especially when it is a generation or two removed. We have an old cabinet photo in our family that was passed down to my mother from her mother, who got it from her father, who came here from Poland in the 1890s. The family story was that the photo was of my grandfather in his Yeshiva [religious school] in Poland and as such it would have been the only image of our family from the "old country." It had a caption inscribed in Yiddish that no one in my family could read. I eventually took it to a Yiddish scholar for translation. What it actually said was in effect "thank you for all you've done to support our school; here's a picture of our latest graduating class" and it was dated 20 years after my great grandfather had come to America.

I don't know--no one "knows" the answer to the question. My opinion [FWIW] after seeing the evidence is that given the magnitude of the purpose of the image donation to the HOF, I tend to believe that the family would have exercised unusual care to make sure that the image that was going to be "forever" would be correct. I also agree with Scott's post to the effect that given the use of the image, the ultimate answer is less important at this point than it might be otherwise. Just like Abner Doubleday.