File talk:Miriam A. Works.jpg

Dubious[edit]

Something is wrong here. This claims to be a photo of Miriam Works, who died in 1832 at age 26, before photography became commercially practical (a.k.a., the "birth of photography" in France, 1839). If taken at face value, this may be the earliest known photographic portrait, depicting in remarkable quality a frontier mother of no special status or relationship to the development of photography, with what may be studio lighting. I'm guessing either this isn't Miriam Works, or this isn't a photograph.

Where did it come from? The description says it's from the Utah Lighthouse Ministry's website, from their Online Resources, where there is a tract called "Brigham Young's Wives and His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb". I can't find this title as a publication in library holdings, and I'm not sure if the Tanners are the authors (as they are for most ULM publications). A little searching with Google showed some other pages using similar images for Miriam Works. They are all user-uploaded with no source cited.

I suspect this is just a circulated image (perhaps not originating with the Tanners) that has been somewhat modified or touched up from time to time. On findagrave.com, there was another seemingly unrelated image of the family of Vilate Young Decker (1830-1902), Mariam's daughter.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=6939784&PIpi=23444834

So I looked up further images of Vilate Young Decker and found the following:

Do these look the same as Miriam's picture? (Notice the matching curves of both collars, the matching hair, the position of the ear/nose/mouth, and where shadows cast on the face.) These images for Vilate are also user-uploaded, with no primary source listed, so I guess it might not be Vilate either. I have an easier time believing that they are all pictures of Vilate, since photography was commonplace in her lifetime, unlike her mother. Perhaps at some point in history someone took Vilate's picture and gave it Miriam's caption, and it continues to this day. Is this an credible? Should something be done so Wikipedia doesn't perpetuate this? Perhaps changing the title to "Purported portrait of Miriam A. Works.jpg"? ——Rich jj (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is the wrong place to bring this up. The file is on [Commons].--- ARTEST4ECHO^(Talk) 20:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the guidance. I didn't think to look for the link to Commons until I had already posted this, so I had already made a comment at Commons and linked back to here. So I already have a little blurb at Commons. Should I switch them, moving the long writup from here to Commons and moving the short blurb from Commons to here? ——Rich jj (talk) 20:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

However I disagree. While there is a familiar similarity, I don't think any of the Vilate Young Decker are the same image. Addionally, while there is no requirement for a image to be "sourced", the Utah Lighthouse Ministry's website is a WP:RS.--- ARTEST4ECHO^(Talk) 20:38, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The image was also used by the University of Utah, see Brigham Young and Mormon Polygamy], click on Miriam Works--- ARTEST4ECHO^(Talk) 20:51, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It also appears in the book Crockwell, James H (1887). Pictures and biographies of Brigham Young and his wives. Salt Lake City, UT: Press of Geo. Q Cannon & Sons Co. Retrieved 2 March 2015.--- ARTEST4ECHO^(Talk) 21:02, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that images are not held to a RS standard, and I also agree that ULM and the Tanners are fine as sources. But that 1887 book by James H. Crockwell is a fantastic find! It's the source I wish I could have found! Great job! It shows that this image has historical precedent for depicting Miriam Works. And I wasn't trying to say the image was a hoax or anything, just that it set off my alarm bells as a photo before the birth of photography. Maybe its actually a painting, but would the Young family in 1820s/30s upstate NY have had the means for a painted portrait? To my eye, Miriam's and Vilate's pictures match on the collars, the hair, the facial position, and the shadows. They seem like heavily retouched versions of each other. I am no kind of expert, just an amateur's opinion. So this is the best source for this image so far, but I still question how it could possibly really be Miriam. Like many regular folks of her age, no portrait may have ever been made of her, or no image survives to this day. But the same is said of Shakespeare and Columbus, yet we all know their portraits from artists of later generations. In the same way, I accept this as our cultural representation of Miriam Works. Just keep in mind that others may have my same alarm bells in the future and come here hoping for answers. Which I don't have. ——Rich jj (talk) 23:51, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what else to tell you. The book by James Crockwell was published in 1887, only 10 years after Brigham Young's death, under the supervision of Andrew Jenson (Noted Church Historian, Church photographer and Assistant Church Historian). It was "published with the consent and approval of the Presidency and the eldest son now living, Brigham Young" (jr.). Nine of Brigham Young's children signed the book giving permission to publish. Could it be possible that all those people made a mistake? Sure, It happens sometimes that families confuse "Family legends" as facts. (I've seen it in my own family). However, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, clearly the book AND the images use by BYU both meet the WP:RS requirements to be used as a cited sources, even through they aren't even required in this case anyway.

If anything, I would suggest that the later images your concerned about are in fact mistakes made by others using Miriam's image as someone else. However, I'm not sure they are the same image anyway.

Lastly, Plate photography was invented in "early decades of the 19th century". The oldest surviving photograph is from 1826. So while it would have been a very early photo, it would not be "a photo before the birth of photography".

However, I have removed the "Photo of" statement form the description to allow for other ways this image could have come about, like the painting method you described.--- ARTEST4ECHO^(Talk) 17:59, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your responses, as well as your edit to the description respecting my concerns. I hope my tone didn't come off as pushy. It's always hard for me to tell how I'm sounding to other people, and I only meant to be friendly and curious, not aggressive. I may have gotten excited and jumped to conclusions that this was a rework of Vilate's portrait. That is still my personal view, but I acknowledge that it's subjective and my own home-cooked theory. (Although semi-transparent overlay with this image of Vilate, image #27, lines up very nicely.) And to reiterate my last comment, I retract any challenge I may have made to this picture's validity for Wikipedia. It has historical precedent for depicting Miriam and is the only such depiction that I've seen.

As for the history of photography, its article dates the "birth of practical photography" to 1839 when the daguerreotype was introduced. Plate photography required several hours of exposure by 1833, which Daguerre reduced down to mere minutes by 1837. The first photographed person was in 1838 on a Paris street, where only one pedestrian was still enough for the 10 minute exposure (his boots were being polished, near the bottom left). In 1839 photography went public and the earliest known portraits are from this year.

Only a handful of photographs exist before this time. I am assuming that if this really is Miriam then it is a painting. And it sort of looks enough like a painting to me. (And I'm not saying the description should say this. I have nothing to back this up.) ——Rich jj (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]