Face Front…Hold Still…Turn to your left…

By some accounts, the mug shot was invented by Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884), a nineteenth century detective, famous as the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Others date its origin as 1848 and the place as a police station in Liverpool, England. Still others say that the custom began in the 1870s, in Paris, France by Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), a clerk at the Préfecture of Police. The earliest mug shot still in existence is thought to be one that dates from 1843 and was taken by police in Brussels, Belgium…very early indeed, as that would have happened only fours years after the invention of photography.

Whatever the true origin, the mug shot has become a cultural icon of sorts…recording images of folks as diverse as Bill Gates…
…in a mug shot taken after a 1977 arrest for drunk driving and driving without a license…

…and Elvis Presley…
…in a mug shot-style photograph taken by the FBI when he visited the Nixon White House. There have been reports that even Bert of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie fame has heard the drill…face front…hold still…turn to your left.

One of our specialties is vintage photography and includes both serious images and those that are a bit quirky. Here’s a vintage mug shot that made its way into our inventory…
…this would be one Daniel Richards alias Daniel Williams…a salesman who gave his address as 121 N 16th Street in Philadelphia. This image dates from 1938 when he was arrested by the Scranton police for issuing worthless checks.

On the reverse is pertinent information along with a space set aside for his Bertillon measurements…
Named for its inventor, the aforementioned Alphonse Bertillon, the system…also called anthropometry…was the first scientific method for identifying criminals. It was developed in the days before fingerprinting…at a time when criminal identification was obtained solely by eye-witness accounts…and, thus, was notoriously unreliable. In the Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes is described as being the second highest criminal expert in Europe…after Bertillon. Of course, Alphonse Bertillon is not to be confused with the Glacier Bertillon…the world-renowned ice cream maker established on the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris in 1954…that’s for another posting…

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes adventures of The Meadows Collection…or check out the results at www.meadowscollection.com