Vice notes that some of the pictures were taken in photo booths, which first appeared in the U.S. Others are glass negatives, tin types and photo postcards. Some of the earliest images in the collection are daguerreotypes, the first popular type of photographs, which were commonly used to create portraits in the mid-19th century. Over time, the couple posits, jewelry like wedding rings and bracelets became more popular, peaking among sailors and soldiers during World War II. They suggest that between the 1880s and 1920s, posing under an umbrella symbolized a romantic union. This portrait was dated to about 1880 and featured the note “McInturff, Steve Book, Delaware O."Īccording to Vice’s Vincenzo Ligresti, Nini and Treadwell gradually developed ideas about recurring motifs in the photos. This photo, one of many images of military men in the collection, was marked 1951 with the note “Davis & J.C.”Ĭourtesy of the Nini-Treadwell Collection © Loving by 5 Continents Editions Featuring around 300 photos spanning more than a century, the volume is available through Italian publisher 5 Continents Editions. The result of their trips to flea markets, shops, estate sales and family archives across Europe, Canada and the United States is a tome titled Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s to 1950s. In the decades that followed this initial discovery, the pair came across more than 2,800 photos of men in love-at first accidentally and later on purpose. We were intrigued that a photo like this could have survived into the century. “Taking such a photo, during a time when they would have been less understood than they would be today, was not without risk.
“The open expression of the love that they shared also revealed a moment of determination,” Nini and Treadwell tell the Post. When Texas couple Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell stumbled onto a 1920s-era photograph in a Dallas antiques shop some 20 years ago, they were startled to see a relationship that looked much like theirs: two men, embracing and clearly in love.Īs Dee Swann writes for the Washington Post, the image spoke to the couple about the history of love between men.