HA! HA!: Encyclopedia II - HA! HA! - Origin: Photography or Dentistry?

HA! HA! - Origin: Photography or Dentistry?

The image first appeared on the Internet during January of 2003, with an edited caption reading "HA! HA! I'm using the Internet!!!1". It is generally thought to be an advertisement from the nineteenth-century that features an engraving of an 18th-century Quaker or Anglican minister. The precise meaning of the phrase 'insoluble dry plates' has divided researchers into two camps: Photographic HAHAists and Dental HAHAists.

HA! HA! - Photographic HAHAists

This camp holds that the image is an advertisement for photographic materials, and that 'insoluble dry plates' are a type of photographic plate. Gelatin-silver dry plate photonegatives were the dominant form of glass negative in professional photography during the period 1880-1920, until they were superseded by celluloid-based photographic film, and the book "Images and Enterprise" by Reese V. Jenkins [1] indicates that Forbes was a small independent emulsion manufacturer in the 1880's which produced dry plates. It is presumed in this connection that the feature of "insoluble" means that the plates' gelatin coating was stable and non-disintegrating.

It should also be noted that the text showing through from the other side of the scanned image seems to be an advertisement for 'Photographic Supplies', making one believe the image is part of an advertisement from a magazine specializing in photography, and therefore aimed at professional and serious amateur photographers rather than the general public, while the Art Nouveau style of the text suggests a period from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

HA! HA! - Dental HAHAists

Dental HAHAists believe the 'insoluble dry plates' are a form of dentures. The prominence of the teeth, and the significance of the man laughing out loud in the advertisement, indicate the confidence the wearer has in his denture's fit. This would be a period version of our modern denture commercials where denture wearers bite into apples, squawk at auctions, and otherwise do things that users of other dentures are afraid to do, lest their teeth fall out.

HA! HA! - Problems

The problem with the Photographic theory is that while dry plates were an improvement over wet plates (first produced in 1871) they still required professional handling. The first mass marketed "easy to use" photographic product was actually Roll Film first produced by Eastman Kodak in 1881.

The problem with the Dental theory is that the text that bleeds through from the page behind the article, on enhancement, seems to be hawking photographic supplies. The only way to put the matter to rest would be to locate the original newspaper.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Origin: Photography or Dentistry?", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki