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Rare Color Photo of WWI Woman Marine


mars&thunder
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Color photography did exist in the WWI period but it was prohibitively expensive. However at least one woman Marine had her picture taken in color, so you can see a better representation of the shade of uniform they were wearing, which I have read somewhere wasn't forest green due to a shortage of that material/color combination. The service member pictured is Frieda A. Frantz who served in Washington DC and earned a good conduct medal for her 4 years service (active and inactive reserves).

 

FriedaFrantz_findagrave_kellaher.jpeg.cb2c958e9144f787de761f8e18f531c1.jpeg

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teufelhunde.ret

Personalinterviewswereconductedwiththefolowingnamed persons, copies of which are contained in the files of the
Reference Section, History and Museums Division, Head- quarters, U.S. Marine Corps.
BENSON, Mary A. (Mrs. Albert Eldred) April 1972. BERTRAM, Elizabeth (Mrs.) July 1972.
BOND,Olive(Mrs.Miler),August1972. CHAPMAN,MaryLou(Mrs.WarenClayson),April1972. ELYSON,Samia(Mrs.Pope),April1972.
ERVIN, Lucy (Mrs. Winter), November 1972.
FRANTZ, Frieda(Mrs.T.Keleher),October1972.

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Teufelhunde - Thanks for the note. I have not tried to get the full interview file (not sure how to do that) but I have read Hewitt's Women Marines in World War I where the body of interviews was frequently referenced/utilized. She did feature in a local newspaper article years later which discussed her wartime service. Glad to see a few people are noticing the image. I thought it was spectacular.

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teufelhunde.ret

Send a PM to BRIG he works at Quantico, he can get you a number, or PM to DIRK, he can get you a number and contact to call. It is a darling photo!

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I'd agree . . . looks like a colorized (at the time) picture. It was quite common to get pictures colored, even going back father than the Great War.

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teufelhunde.ret
2 hours ago, 12thengr said:

X2, when I first looked at it I thought it was a colorized photo. I'm not sure that color photography was invented until a few years later.

The first commercially successful color process, the Lumière Autochrome, invented by the French Lumière brothers, reached the market in 1907. Instead of colored strips, it was based on an irregular screen plate filter made of three colors of dyed grains of potato starch which were too small to be individually visible.... Wikipedia 

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I agree it is not actual color photography, but what was known as hand-coloring, a popular practice before color film became readily available.

 

 

Hand-coloring is also known as hand painting or overpainting. Typically, water colors, oils, crayons or pastels, and other paints or dyes are applied to the image surface using brushes, fingers, cotton swabs or airbrushes. Hand-colored photographs were most popular in the mid- to late-19th century before the invention of color photography and some firms specialized in producing hand-colored photographs.

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  • 1 year later...

Cowell-001(2).jpg.92348c9210a21ed936ac7fc6549bb2b4.jpgthat is a nice photo.  hear is a photo Mildred Cowell it is part of the collection of  items I have that belonged to her. summer type uniform jacket/ shirt/hat tie/overcoat,allso her discharge papers/advancement to cpl/gcm named and numbered and more photos

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Great image. You are lucky to be able to act as the steward of the items reflecting her Marine service. Few have that privilege. These women were extremely proud of their service. 

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