A young woman poses for her portrait at the Samson & Company Studio in Barmen, Germany. She is wearing a dark dress with a dark polka dot top. The woman looks quite serious. In fact, her expression, in particular her eyes, projects a haunted appearance. One wonders what might be troubling this young lady. Barmen is a former industrial city located in the Bergisches Land region. The city merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal. It is interesting to note that the cabinet card gallery has two other images by a gallery named Samson & Company. Both of these photographs are German but they are not located in Barmen. The other two photo studios were located in Duisburg and Karlsruhe respectively. You may view all three images by searching the category “Photographer: Samson & Company”. To complicate matters further, the book “The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet” reports that Fromm’s mother took him regularly to Samson & Company for portraits. The author notes that the studio was located in Frankfurt and catered to Jewish families. Erich Fromm grew up to be a celebrated pioneer psychologist.
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
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