I'd be lying if I said I know the "real" story.

But I believe you are right that what looks on cursory inspection like a belt buckle is actually his compositor's rule, with large type letters spelling his name.  I believe the image is taken from a daguerreotype, and therefore is reversed left to right.  In other words, had you been standing where the camera was, the actual Sam would have appeared as a mirror image to the Sam in the photo,  the letters spelling his name would be reversed.  They were type letters, after all.  Someone, either Sam or another person involved in the process, realized that in a daguerreotype the letters would appear "correct", as they would on the printed page.  The slight grin on his face suggests he got the "joke".


There is a photo from, I think, 1891 that shows Clara and Susy in a wagon.  Clara is maybe a year or two older than young Sam in the daguerreotype and, in my opinion, looks very much like him.  They both have mischievous looks about them.

Carl


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Dave Davis
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2020 6:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The 1850 Photograph of SLC

What is the consensus on the early (1850) photographic image of SLC?

Image is reproduced here, among others --

https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/03/05/mark-twain-celebrity-photographys-first-superstar-and-critic


" Twain at age 15, photo attributed to GH Jones, circa 1850, courtesy of Bancroft Library Pictorial Collections"

(At that link, the text suggests he was a cabin boy at that time, which I believe is almost certainly wrong.)

I recently hazarded a guess:

(ME) "I've known that photograph for years. And I've seen Orion's printing equipment. And -- I just now realized: He's holding those letters that way because they are set in the compositor's rule! It just *looks* like a belt buckle. It is a clever hack-- and I bet he had to put those letters back where he found them.

Photographic reproduction (whatever the actual process, like
daguerreotype)  was not all that common to mere working people in the US Midwest at that period, as far as I know. So one wonders how it is that such an image came to be created (and paid for) .

Who knows the real story?

DDD