Pic of the Week (#134) - Dapper Derby Dans of Rockford, Illinois

Every Friday The Psychogenealogist shares a "Pic of the Week." The intent is to encourage thought and imagination about the spaces where psychology, genealogy, and history converge.

Here are six similarly aged and dressed men wearing Derby or Bowler type hats and dark overcoats. They are standing in front of a winter photography studio backdrop.

The approximately five by seven inch photograph is in excellent condition with only a few easily fixable imperfections on the front. It is affixed to a sturdy eight by ten matting.

Here is a zoomed in crop of these Dapper Dans.

There are no markings on the back of the photograph. The embossed photographer’s stamp in the bottom right corner appears to say: “Rosenquist” and “Rockford, Ill.”.

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Is this perhaps the J. A. Rosenquist of Rockford, IL who, in 1895, was jailed for refusing to pay fellow photographer E. H. Westerburg for a libelous newspaper article he wrote?

What do you think?

  • Who are these men and what are their stories?

  • Are they related? Friends? Colleagues? Fraternity brothers?

  • When do you think the photograph was taken?

  • Who was the photographer, Rosenquist, and what is his story?

  • What do you think, feel, and wonder about is you look at the photo?


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