1. "Lizzie Photos"
Posted by Edisto on Jul-23rd-02 at 12:28 PM

Last night, I was perusing a FRHS publication from the early 90s (1990s, that is) and found approximate dates for some of Lizzie's photos.  I don't know how accurate they are.  I've been trying to find out what methods the FRHS uses to authenticate photos, but no luck so far.  Does anyone know?  I do know there was an article in the LBQ about that large-group shot that supposedly shows Lizzie in the front row.  It's shown in the photo gallery on this site.  Readers were asked to vote on whether they thought it was Lizzie or not, and they voted overwhelmingly "No."  Supposedly the logo of a Fall River photographer that appeared on the photo or its folder was found to have been forged.  The photo was to have been offered at auction but was then withdrawn.  That makes it highly questionable.  Anyway, the FRHS says that sweet-looking picture of Lizzie unchracteristically looking toward her right (three left images in row 3) was taken around 1895.  The one at the right end of that same row, as most of us know, was supposedly taken in Newport right after the trial.  Lizzie was the guest at that time of Mr. and Mrs. William King Covell.  Mrs. Covell was the sister of Lizzie's friend, Mary Anna Holmes.  It seems obvious that Lizzie had gained some flesh during her stay in the lockup.  The image on the right in the second row, showing Lizzie wearing her "loud" pansy pin, was probably taken shortly before the murders, because it was used as the basis for many of the newspaper sketches.  Lixzie looks quite svelte in that one.  Finally, the FRHS says that older image of Lizzie wearing pince-nez and sporting a distinct double chin is from about 1905, when she would have been 45.  I think she looks older.  (Sorry, Lizzie.)

I would imagine that the FRHS would use a couple of different methods to authenticate photos.  Is the photo from someone trustworthy; a Borden relative, relative of someone who was friends with Lizzie, etc.

I would also think that the type of photography would play a part; was it a photography method available during Lizzie's lifetime?

Clothing styles too would probably play an important part due to the rapid change in women's fashions during Lizzie's life.

And last, but, not least, I think that the FRHS does what we do, look at the photos very closely and compare the image to known images of Lizzie.

There are so many questions I would also like to ask the FRHS. I wish they had email. I find it so cumbersome to type a letter, print it out, mail it, and wait a few weeks for a reply.

Most of the historical societies I have visited have email contact information. Why, oh why, Mr. Martins, don't you?

That bogus "*Lizzie Group Photo* has a permanent home at the Fall River Police Force web-site.  It drives me crazy when I go there.  After all the polls, with only one "YEA" out of many "Nays" (You know who you are...)...that photo is still FEATURED.

I wrote them a year and a half ago, stated all the issues involved and cited LBQ etc., and was totally ignored.  I guess they don't maintain their site....

What I'm getting is that it's a pretty unscientific process.  If what Susan says is true (and I realize it's just a supposition on her part), heck, half the pictures of Lizzie may not be authentic.  I agree with the part about being sure it's a photo process that would have been used at the time the picture was supposedly taken, checking fashions, etc.  However, both photo processes and fashions can be fairly easily faked.  The possible Lizzie photo shown on the Lizzie Andrew Borden site - the one in which she's shown with one other woman - might make a good study.  I don't personally think it's Lizzie, although I acknowledge a strong resemblance.  First, look at the hairstyle.  We can see it quite clearly.  Have we ever seen Lizzie wear her hair in that sort of roll on top of her head?  The frizzy bangs are similar, but not that roll of hair.  However, I realize hairstyles can be easily changed and thus are of limited usefulness in identifying a person.  Even more interesting is the earlobe that we can see clearly.  Lizzie had very nice ears, which were commented on in the newspapers.  They were small, shell-like and close to her head.  They had (in the other pictures) a distinct rounded lobe.  This woman looks as if she has almost no earlobes and that what lobe is there is sort of (for want of a better term) cut on the bias (slanted).  Although earlobes do get longer as we age, and ears appear to get larger, I don't think the shape of the lobe would change that much.  This picture was taken at a time when women's fashions had puffed sleeves.  That would probably be about the time of the murders or afterward.  Does this person look the right age for Lizzie in the early 1890s?  The picture comes from a photography studio in Holyoke, MA.  Yes, Lizzie did live in Massachusetts, but would she have gone to Holyoke (fairly removed from Fall River) to have her picture taken?  Maybe, under the right circumstances, or the Holyoke photographer might have come to Fall River. However, all of these things cause me to question the picture.  Can somone share its origin?

I understand the point about authentication of photo's, and I also agree with Susan's summation [Edit here:  I got waylaid...I meant to add here that though I understand the point you make NOW, Edisto...I hadn't ever really thought about it before...and find it very interesting to ponder further...Thanks]

However, I always looked askance at Lizzie's ears.
They seem heavy in the lobe, and turn in at mid-ear and turn OUt at the tips.  Not very shell-like.

Her parents ears aren't real lovely either, in my estimation.

I do look at ears and noses.
The heavier- faced girl had ear/nose on the same plane...whereas in most pictures of Lizzie her ears continue Below the plane of her nose.  (below the tip).
This may not be scientific, but I had noted that (shades of Lombroso?) killers ears seem to be farther down their heads then their noses.  Does that make sense?
Also I find from forensic works that HANDs are probably the best feature of a person to use as identification later.

--By the age Lizzie was when the portrait was done that is on the cover of DID SHE?DIDN'T SHE? her hairline at the middle parting was balding.  That other girl's hair would have to be a wig to cover THAT about our Lizzie...





(Message last edited Jul-23rd-02  11:40 PM.)

The studio shot of the two women was emailed to me from its new owner who had purchased the image at a flea market. She liked the photo and asked me if I thought it was Lizzie. I offered her a comparison of the Lizzie heads and told her that I was not an expert in such things. I asked her if I could ask around what people thought and she said ok. She said no matter what the outcome, she still loved the picture and she was happy she bought it.

I am curious as to what you all think. I will tell her to come take a look at your comments if this thread continues as to her likeness/unlikeness.

I find the resemblance remarkable, but there is a definite lack of Lizzieness about this woman. I see it in the eyes, mostly, and in the shape of the cheekbone area. close but no cigar, in my opinion. But I still LOVE collecting Lizzie lookalikes or almost lookalikes.

One quick story. I was in line at the post office last Thursday. Got there at 4:30 and there were tons of people waiting. I had a few items and not being rude kind of looked around at the stamp posters on the wall rather than the people. Well, there I was minding my own business when the Postal worker said "Next customer please" and this woman walked up to the counter from the left of me to the far right of me. She had on a shapeless back shift type dress on. I didn't see her face but was fascinated by her hair. She had that lovely curly auburn victorian curls in around the head with a long pony tail, or braided hair, down the back. Short on the sides and very long in the back. Down to her butt. I was imagining what it must look like wrapped into a bun on the back of her head. I was thinking how old fashioned. How cool. When she finished her transaction she briefly glanced over her shoulder my way. Over her right shoulder. My heart skipped a beat. It was Lizzie Borden. She looked exactly like her. Her eyes were riviting. They went right through me. Pale blue. She had that nose, that little upturned nose. Those high cheeks. Great eyebrows. And she was in color!

She left quickly and my eyes followed her outside. I actually turned my body in line to watch her go. I was totally transfixed. She got into a Ford pickup truck, a black one, and drove away. I actually thought, yeah, Lizzie would own a pickup truck. It seemed to fit her at the moment to a T.

I hope I see her again. I think next time I will have to speak with her and find out where she is originally from. It really gave me a start, I must admit, for I have never met anyone in life that looked like Lizzie before. Have any of you?

Very cool story, Stefani!  I personally have yet to run into a Lizzie lookalike, I imagine I would be as flabberghasted as you! 

Great story Stef. I sat opposite a woman at a Victorian Tea a few months ago who resembled Lizzie. Could not take my eyes off her, and made her a little nervous...
I hope you run into your Lizzie lookalike again, mabe she'll take you for a ride in her truck!

Well if she turns out to be from Massachusetts it will give me the whim-whams.

(What exactly are 'the whim-whams'? Sounds rather exciting...)

One of the reporters who covered the trial (this was in either the "Did She...?" book or the "Sourcebook") mentioned that there were a lot of women in New Bedford who resembled Lizzie.  If that's still the case, it would be kind of eerie.  Someone else said Lizzie had a "double" in Fall River - a person who resembled her so closely that she was mistaken for her.  Keith and I have a friend who looks quite a lot like Lizzie in the Newport picture.  We're having dinner with her in a couple of weeks.  She isn't terribly flattered when I say she looks like Lizzie.  I wonder why...

I realize this may be more trouble than its worth, but, would n't it be fun to post pictures of women that currently look like our Lizzie?  You would have to get their consent to do it and in the case of a stranger, they might not allow it.  But, wouldn't it be fun to see? 

Very cool story, Stef.  Almost as if it's a sign of approval for yr site from The Lizzie Beyond.

BTW, IMHO, none of the Lizzie Maybe pix scream "that's Lizzie" to me, but they're lots of fun just the same.

Edisto:  I just saw that again, two nights ago and this time circled it...so I knew just where to look.
You're right...it's a snippet in the Evening Standard Book:  DID SHE?DIDN'T SHE?, date June 13, 1893, pg.4, just above the Cocoa-Cola ad:
"The New York Sun reporter sees a good many women of the Lizzie Borden physiognomy in this city [New Bedford?], referring especially to the high cheek bones.  But he does not seem to stand in any special fear of his life."

Their idea of "high cheek bones" and mine seem to be different.
(To me, that evokes Kate Hepburn, etc.)

Were they being specific in that description?  Or has the ideal or definition changed in the ensuing 100 years?

(Message last edited Jul-25th-02  1:00 AM.)

According to Radin's book (page 44, paperback) there were many in New England of Lizzie's facial type:

"Lizzie Borden, the old maid, was just thirty-two years old at the time of the murders; her birthday had been celebrated nineteen days before. Contrary to the legend, she was neither large nor muscular. Although Lizzie confided to friends that during the ten months she had been in jail awaiting trial she had put on so much weight that some of her dresses had to be altered for her courtroom appearance, reporters who saw her for the first time when the trial began were surprised to find themselves staring at a slight, thin-boned woman, with small hands, ears and feet, not much over five feet four inches tall, and who, despite her added weight, still appeared quite slender. She was so much  smaller than most reporters had been led to believe by the already growing legend that almost all of them commented on it in their first-day stories. Most of them described her figure as petite.

She was certainly not beautiful, nor even pretty, but neither was she homely. In an era when women of her class in New England used no cosmetics except for a faint brushing of face powder, she was described in the language of the day as pleasant or plain looking. She possessed the high cheekbones, the strong chin, the full lips, and deep mouth creases characteristic of so many New England descendants of early Colonial settlers. Frequent intermarriages within a small group of families had produced a recognizable facial type, and her counterparts can still be seen today in many New England towns. Her best features were her large expressive eyes and her hair, which was invariably described as "beautiful, fine, soft and glossy." The color was described as nut-brown or auburn tinged, indicating that it had a reddish cast. She wore her hair in a large roll in back of her head."

I'm not a great admirer of Radin's book, but I did enjoy this description, because I think he probably got it right.  I doubt that Lizzie was anyone who would stand out in a crowd at all.  A year or so ago, I had an extremely graphic dream in which I guess I was one of the neighbors who came to Lizzie's aid right after Andrew's body was discovered.  I found myself sort of floating through that side entrance and into the kitchen, where Lizzie was seated in a rocking chair, wearing her Bedford-cord dress.  I could see the design so clearly!  My first thought was, "She looks nothing like I would have imagined."

Its not just Judge Dewey who mentioned the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. F Lee Bailey's 1971 book says about half of all wrongful convictions involved eyewitness testimony.
You can look it up.

Finally having found this post again, I wanted to comment about Lizzie's "balding."   I too have noticed that she had a rather wide part in her hair in several of her pictures.  Her hairdresser should have suggested she part it somewhere else for awhile, to give that area of her head a rest.  I'm not sure she was getting bald with age, because that jowly shot of her with the pince-nez doesn't show the wide part.  Her hair actually looks thicker.  Maybe she had some kind of a hormone problem at one time.  That would explain a lot!  Victoria Lincoln would love it.

When I posed the question about how the FRHS authenticates photographs, I would have supposed they had some methodical way of doing it.  One possibility might be to ask people donating photos to provide a description of the photo and state who's in it and how they know who it is.  I subscribe to a newspaper from my old hometown in South Carolina.  A few years ago, they had a feature in which they would publish an unidentified photo from their archives and ask readers if they could identify it.  Since I lived there many years ago and recognized a lot of people in the photos, I really enjoyed that feature.  The FRHS could publish a photo or post a copy at the FRHS itself and ask the locals if anyone could provide information about it.  Someone might have a copy of the same photo at home, for example.  I understand they have some 15,000 photos, so they would have to pick and choose, but it would still be helpful in some cases.
There's also that technology that's supposedly going to be used at airports, whereby facial features can be analyzed and compared with mug shots of terrorists (or whatever).  It seems something similar might be useful here.  I was looking for something more than "Hey, Zeke!  Doesn't this picture look like Auntie Maude?  Or is it Uncle Caleb on a bad day?"  Guess not...

When I read your post about authtication I began to wonder about the Bridget photo.  ONLY ONE Bridget photo? And So how would THAT be qualified?  I think it's smart of you to raise this question.  It is something for us to always keep in mind!

A drawing of Bridget, obviously made from that photo, appears in several issues of the Evening Standard. Since the papers were contemporary with the trial I think it's safe to assume that the photo is indeed her.

So this would be one of the ways to "authenticate".  That's interesting...contemporary source comparison.

I found some info on more of the scientific end of authenticating photos.  This is basically for the time period it was made and also if it is an orginal or modern day print.  They are the use of ultraviolet light and a microscope.  I've provide links to the pages so you all can read about the process', its fascinating!

http://cycleback.com/blacklight.htm

http://www.cycleback.com/josephhall.htm

And last, but, not least, found out some of the obscure types of photos available in Victorian times.

http://cycleback.com/solidtypes.htm

(Message last edited Jul-27th-02  3:12 AM.)