Anthropological-Ethnological Album in Photographs by C. Dammann in Hamburg (1873-1874)

The photo album “Antropologisch-Ethnologisches Album in Photographien von C. Dammann in Hamburg 1873-1874” (Anthropological and Ethnological Album in Photographs by Carl Dammann in Hamburg 1873-1874) consists of a large-scale folder with 50 pages and 642 photographs. The photographs, of various shapes and developed on albumen paper, are grouped into various layouts. Each page contains 5 to 18 photos of different layouts. Each page has a short descriptive comment and, as in this case, the author or origin of the photograph. Each photo has an individual caption in which the gender, age, and name of the person portrayed are usually indicated. Most photos are portraits or studio compositions, producing stereotyped images. This album conveys the interest in photography that arose in the 1860-70s as the only means of satisfying people's growing curiosity about other communities and cultures. As for the scientific field, photography provided access to knowledge about other peoples in the world, as it enabled those who did not have access to these places to study the people who lived there. This technique was so important that people started publishing textbooks with rules and instructions about how images should be captured, especially when used for anthropological studies. Later on, the aim was to facilitate potential studies by other groups of people who, at that time, were not anthropologists themselves, but rather merchants, sailors, missionaries, and so on. The desire for collecting the highest number of images resulted in "ethnographic albums" that pertained to one country or voyage. This album is such an example. Carl Dammann was commissioned by the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnography, and Prehistory) to compile this album in an effort to disseminate these kinds of images across Germany. The author dedicated himself to collecting photos by other authors and grouping them into one album—one of the first and most complete of its kind on record. The album's success led to its author winning the bronze medal at the International Exhibition of Vienna in 1873. This fact is reflected in many pages, where his winning status at the exhibition is noted.