I've really been enjoying researching 19th century baseball, but I have a long ways to go. I do have some questions if someone(s) wouldn't mind learnin' me a thing or two
1) How exactly were the woodcuts made? I get that they were carved in wood, the uncarved away wood part got ink and then stamped on paper, but how were these carved? Was this done by hand, or was an actual photograph somehow transferred onto the wood itself?
2) Someone earlier mentioned each woodcut could be considered an original work of art ... but why?
3) For Harper's Weekly, why didn't they just show photographs instead of the woodcuts? I see some woodcuts at the bottom that say "From a photograph by the photo-mechanical printing company". Clearly, the technology was there to create the photograph in the first place - was it just not able to be replicated?
4) Speaking of replication, how on earth did Old Judge replicate images then, if Harper's Weekly couldn't? Clearly there are multiple copies of each card, and they appear to be photographs. Did they just take a bunch of pictures at once?
5) As for CDVs / Cabinet cards, how were these replicated? Surely there were more than one each of these.
I'm sure I have more questions and I'll keep researching, but I'd love to hear from some of you knowledgeable folks here!