Adelicia Cheatham [1]

Adelicia Cheatham (with head down)
Carl Casper Giers (Germany; April 28, 1828 – Nashville; May 24, 1877. Active 1855-1877)
Backmark: C. C. Giers
43 & 45 Union Street
Nashville
Place: Nashville, Tennessee
Date: ca. 1875
Provenance: Adelicia to her daughter Pauline Acklen Locket, unknown, purchased by Belmont Mansion Association from a photograph dealer in Pennsylvania
2016.01.59 Belmont Mansion Association purchase


Carl C. Giers came to the United States in 1845; he moved to Nashville in 1852. He first worked as a conductor on the Chattanooga rail line. In 1855, he began his photography business taking Daguerreotypes. By the time of the Civil War, he had developed a large photography business and employe several other photographers and painters to color photographs. During the Civil War he photographed soldiers on both sides. ** By May of 1864, he was advertising that his studio did cartes de visites, portraits, vignettes, 4-4 photographs, fancy ovals, gems, fereotypes, ambrotypes, and melainotypes and makes copies of other photographs. His business survived the war and continued to grow. In 1874, he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. He died in May of 1877. The studio continued operating for a few months under his name before being sold to William Evermond Armstrong.

Mark Brown

** James Hoobler, Nashville from the Collection of Carl and Otto Giers. (Charleston, S.C. Arcadia Publishing ) 1999, pp introduction.