Actually, I said I doubted unsharp masking was used back in the day for pictures like these.
But if Mr. Wasserman is correct (and I think that's a safe assumption), then you are looking at a digitization of what probably existed only in reproduction, possibly even in newsprint. No telling what they might have done to mask the line screen used in the printing.
And you now know what lenses he used: Probably a Rapid Rectilinear in 1909. The Tessar was still a relatively new design at that time, and it existed then only in an f/6.3 design. The Rapid Rectilinear was a pretty standard lens in those days, along with the Zeiss Anastigmat. Probably both the Zeiss Anastigmat and the Tessar were produced under license by Bausch and Lomb (who also made Rapid Rectilinear models), and those were probably the first lenses on the Folmer and Schwing Graflex that was perhaps Hine's next camera.
The Rapid Rectilinear is a four-element, two group lens of opposing cemented pairs. The same design was separately invented in Germany and called the Aplanat.
Here's a web page devoted to a Bausch and Lomb Rapid Rectilinear mounted on a digital camera. I think you'll see some effects on that web page that will ring a bell.
The effect in Hine's picture shows limited depth of field, but the subject is still some distance from the camera. Thus, the subject is not oversized with respect to the background as would often be the case with a normal or wide lens at very wide aperture used on a small-format camera. It is very difficult with the short lenses used on small cameras to get that little depth of field when the focus plane is that far from the camera. Even a 10" lens at f/6.3 will provide less depth of field on 5x7 than a 50mm lens at f/1.4 on 35mm, both printed to the same size. Tessars of that time were that fast--I don't know about Rapid Rectilinears.
Rick "who likes the vintage look of tessars, recognizing they aren't as vintage as the RR" Denney
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