The Dividing Line
The dividing line is a thick, decorative line across the front of a cabinet card that divides the space in two, the large upper part for the image, and a small lower section for the photographer’s imprint. I first noticed this style of imprint on a card by a railroad photographer, and the line resembled a train track. I considered calling it the track line, but since that is just one of many styles, I thought it might be confusing. We wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong side of the tracks.
The dividing line almost always goes all the way across the card, from side to side, but a few types have curlicue ends and stop just short of the side. It is never a single line, but is typically two parallel lines, or sometimes more, with decorative lines or shapes between the two thin lines. Or the ‘lines’ may be made up of repeating patterns, rather than simple lines. Most dividing lines are about one-fourth inch wide. They are almost always found on cabinet cards, occasionally on larger formats — I have never seen one on a CDV or other small format print. (Not to say they don’t exist, it seems the variety of photograph mounts is never-ending.)
Below you will see illustrations of some typical dividing lines, and we will discuss their temporal distribution, with about 70% of the observed occurrences in just a four year period. We will also discuss the frequency with which this feature is seen on cards for those years, and discuss where they were typically found — this feature has unique spatial as well as temporal characteristics.