A New York City coachman smokes a pipe while waiting for a fare aboard his Hansom Cab parked along Fifth Avenue and Grand Army Plaza near Central Park. In the background at right, two men walk on the sidewalk toward the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, a mansion built in 1883 at 1 West 57th Street which no longer stands. At the left side of the frame, the large building is the old Savoy Hotel, opened in June 1892 at 59th Street and Fifth. Its’ distinctive array of exterior lights at the entrance is perhaps best known today in a nighttime, rain-slicked Fifth Ave. cityscape: Glow of Night, taken by Alfred Stielglitz in 1897.

This photograph may have been taken by George William Harris when he was in the city covering the future United States President Theodore Roosevelt during his 1904 Presidential campaign. That year found the photographer crisscrossing the United States by train, although it was noted in his NYT obituary he also worked for Leslie’s Weekly in New York around this time.

A rare surviving platinum print by Harris, it’s dated 1904 on the verso of its original handmade oak frame, a later gift to his grandson George Harris Jordan, born in 1946. Jordan’s mother was Aileen Havlin Harris Conkey, (1914-1998) the photographer’s eldest daughter.

George William Harris: 1872-1964

Photojournalist & Presidential Photographer

Washington D.C. National Press Club historian Gilbert Klein, writing in 2018, gives a wonderful summary of the photographic life and significance of the career of G.W. Harris as part of his article NPC in History: What was Harris and Ewing? An extract:

“George Harris was not only a key figure in the Club’s history, but also in the history of Washington news photography. He had been the official White House photographer from Theodore Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower, and he had run the first – and for a while the largest – Washington photo news agency out of that building across from the Press Building.

George William Harris was born near Cardiff, Wales, and immigrated to the United States in 1881 at the age of nine. He worked with the Hearst News Service in San Francisco beginning in 1900. During Roosevelt’s 1904 campaign, Harris joined Roosevelt’s press entourage as it crisscrossed the United States by train.

Roosevelt encouraged him to start a Washington photographic news service because out-of-town newspapers had such trouble getting timely photos of news and events in the capital. And, Roosevelt invited him to cover his administration.

In 1905, Harris opened the Harris & Ewing photo studio and international photo news service at 1313 F. St. with four employees. The company was financed largely by his business partner, Martha Ewing, who had worked with him in San Francisco and managed the studio until he bought her out in 1924.

Building from 40 subscribers the first year, providing photos to news outlets across the United States and around the world, Harris & Ewing was the largest photographic studio in America by the late 1930s. At its peak, Harris & Ewing had five studios, employed 120 people and supported a legion of freelance photographers, who produced about 10,000 photos a year. When he sold the news service part of the business in 1945, it was the busiest studio in the country.” (continues)

Obituary: The New York Times, July 21, 1964

George W. Harris, Photographer, 92. Portraitist Of Presidents.

“George W. Harris, a photographer known for his portraits of Presidents and members of Congress, died Saturday at the age of 92. George William Harris, a native of Cardiff, Wales, came to the United States at the age of 9. As a youngster, he went to work in a Pittsburgh steel mill and joined an amateur theatrical troupe. One day the troupe visited a local photographer for a group picture. When the photographer arranged the actors, Mr. Harris objected that the pose was stiff and unreal. The photographer suggested that the youth pose the actors himself. He did. The picture was so good that the photographer hired him to pose his subjects. In 1889, when Mr. Harris was 17, he had learned enough about photography to take pictures of the Johnstown flood for newspaper publication. Shortly afterward he opened a small studio in Arkansas and later moved to San Francisco. There followed three years as a photographer for Leslie’s Weekly in New York. Then, with a color artist named Mrs. Martha Ewing, whom he had met in San Francisco, he founded a studio in Washington called Harris & Ewing. That was in 1905. Since then, in addition to royalty and government dignitaries, his studios have been occupied by brides‐to-be, newlyweds, Army and Navy officers, civil servants and Washington housewives. Every President since Theodore Roosevelt has had a Harris & Ewing portrait. At President Woodrow Wilson’s request Mr. Harris attended the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Thomas Phillips of Arlington, Va., and Mrs. Joseph Jordan of Los Angeles.”