ABSTRACT
Practitioners produce work belonging to all three categories throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Some actors' attempt to claim photographic coloring as a "masculine" profession requiring high skill and artistry, its rejection by photography's established leadership, and some studio directors' attempts to mass-produce the technique by hiring "casual" labor, assured the low prestige of these workers. Arguably, businessmen hoped to deskill the work of hand-tinting, and in the process increase profits by hiring cheaper female labor to do it. Male workers resented, in particular, casual female labor that took on coloring work on a part-time basis. But while coloring was rejected by photography's opinion leaders, the establishment did make exceptions when it came to other forms of retouching. Despite the occasional published piece in support of high quality coloring, by the 1870s such articles often took apologetic or defensive stances. They realized that high quality coloring work required proper training and, implicitly, proper pay.
