Two Images by a 19th Century Chinese American Photographer

Portraits of "Ah Gum and Child" and "Ah Gum's Cousin" [Cabinet Cards]

Ann Ting Gock

Notes: Two very scarce studio portraits of Chinese Americans by the San Francisco Chinese immigrant photographer, Ann Ting Gock. The albumen prints are mounted as cabinet cards with his stamps on the verso (back). Both are captioned in ink on the verso by an unidentified Christian visitor to Chinatown.

The images nominally conform to standard American studio portrature of the late 19th century, but with distinctive Chinese elements as depicted by the artist Wu Youru in his print of a turn of the 20th century Shanghai photography studio, "Even I feel affection for you when I see you" (reprinted in Portrature and Early Studio Photography in China and Japan, p. 7). Here we have the patterned carpet, the Chinese table and chair, a vase with foliage, and even the spitoon, here a white urn at the feet of the sitter.

** Ann Ting Gock **
Very few 19th century photographs by Chinese American photographers survive. I was able to locate a single image by Ann, at the California Historical Society, yet he was well known as a photographer in San Francisco's Chinatown. The San Francisco Call newspaper published a long account of a visit to his studio on March 14, 1893 ("With Asian Lens: Sitting for a Mongolian Photographer").

"To reach his den you go up a little winding stairway that leads off Clay Street... If you look straight ahead you will probably find Ann Ting Gock at the top of the next flight nursing a cute little yellow baby... Ann Ting Gock will motion you to go into the tiny room to the left of the first landing... This is the main office and showroom. There is a showcase in it and the proprietor's bed... There is an old faded carpet on the floor, and it might be swept cleaner. In the showcase are various card photographs, panels, cabinets, and all sizes of Chinese men and women... Across the landing [is] the operating room. This is not a large apartment, but long enough for focusing the Chinese camera. A skylight admits ample white light... Now the lens in Ann's camera is not quite up to the modern makes found in the more fashionable galleries, but it prints the image on the sensitive plate as large and as lifelike as the best of them."

According to the Call, Ann had been in California for twenty years at the time.

** Ah Gum & Child (handwritten caption on the back (verso) of the mount) **
This image shows a young Chinese woman wearing a dark silk tunic and trousers. Between her knees stands a nicely dressed, three or four year-old girl dressed in typical Chinese attire. On the verso of the image is the following caption, handwritten in ink, "Mrs. Hull, Chinese Mission teacher M. E. Home, took me to call at two Chinese homes (or rooms) & this is the picture of the mother & child of one. San Francisco, Dec. 6-93." The author of this note is not identified.

"Mrs. Hull" is Ida Hull, a thirty-five-year-old widow who taught at the Methodist Episcopal Church's Chinese Mission in San Francisco, beginning in 1891. She was also in charge of home visitations and worked on freeing enslaved girls from Chinatown brothels. In 1901, she married Chan Hon Fan, a Chinese Christian convert who preached at the mission. According to press reports, they had to take the train to Colorado to get married because California officials would not issue a license to a white woman who wanted to marry a Chinese man.

Ah Gum, the name of the sitter for this portrait, is a common transliteration of names for both Chinese men and women of the era. However, she may be the Ah Gum referred to in the Report of the Chinese Mission to the California Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (San Francisco: Cubery and Co., 1890): "Five Christian girls married during the year, including Ah Gum, who was for many years the ward of Grace Church Sunday School."

** Ah Gum's Cousin (handwritten caption on the verso of the mount) **
Under the caption is added, "born in America." I was unable to identify the sitter from census records, but he is a young man, perhaps still a teenager, dressed in a dark tunic and trousers, with a circular hat on his head.

** Photographer's Stamp **
Both cabinet cards are stamped with red ink on the back of the mount. Three separate stamps were used. 1) Ann's chop; 2) "ANN TING GOCK / 842 Clay Street / SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.; 3) No. ___ / Copies of this picture can be had at any time at reduced rates." The negative number is left blank on both photographs.

The albumen photographs measure 4-7/8 by 5-1/2 inches on slightly larger mounts. The mounts appear cut by hand and are not quite the same size, nor are they perfectly square.

Edition + Condition: The images have a slight greenish cast to them and have light to medium contrast.

Publication: San Francisco: Ann Ting Gock, 1893.

Item No: #307210

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