This is the first of a two-part blog post: Revealed: C.R. Tucker: Restless Wanderer with a Camera. It uncovers a life once lost to history: the fascinating story of public school educator and amateur photographer Charles Rollins Tucker, 1868-1956. Our post concludes with an in-depth historical timeline of Tucker’s life. For fifteen years, since acquiring an archive of his work, I’ve been wanting to do a deep-dive into the life of American amateur photographer C.R. Tucker. Perhaps the most important role of this website is to uncover the past lives of anonymous photographers, whose life details have been entirely lost to history. It’s not that he was some lost genius behind the camera, say in the mold of the acknowledged masters of the medium: those have already been, and continue to be, documented and celebrated in the historical canon. In this vein, and to its credit as a medium that continually fascinates by revealing secrets with a bit of digging, Tucker’s photographic life story- began around the time he graduated high school in 1887- can give all of us a relatable way to see how a hobby born 138 years ago can be a life-long journey of exploration rather than a short term dalliance.

The fact that so much photographic history has been lost, an area I expound upon in the second part of this post, makes the rare opportunity to examine but one of these early lives in greater detail based on the remains of that photographic record- water staining, mildew and the effects of improper storage on some of these images seen here being besides the point- an anomaly I wanted to celebrate.

What drove my interest further in discovering and piecing together C.R. Tucker’s life story was that his own career of someone who made his living- not in photography- but as a public school educator for about 45 years- is a realistic example of what dedicated amateurs faced in the early years of the medium, particularly during the Pictorial era of artistic photography.

This main hurdle of course, was cost. Beyond the simplified “you press the button, we do the rest” mantra, which of course revolutionized the massive participation in making photography a popular hobby, required a good bit of money. Think: home dark rooms, a more expensive plate camera, mounting supplies, postage fees for entering competitions, subscriptions to photographic magazines, etc. etc. And this of course did not include the most valuable component: the cost of someone’s free time to be deliberate and open to learning about photographic process and technique needing plenty of time to perfect and master.

Fortunately, C.R. Tucker had the perfect mind and circumstance to take this all on, and his love for history made him an ideal vessel to create historical documents that are the very definition of photographs themselves. That mind? He was a scientist in practical terms but historian at heart. Born in Canton, MA in 1868, and one of only two to graduate from his small town Massachusetts high school in 1887, he went on to receive both his bachelors and masters degrees from Tufts College outside of Boston. These were entirely complimentary for an advanced amateur photographer for that era: in 1891, a bachelors in the speciality of chemistry and physics and in 1894, a master of arts degree.

These degrees and his love of people-especially children- would serve him well in a fruitful career as a teacher in public education for the next 45 years.

Through many fits and starts since acquiring the “C.R. Tucker Trove” of photographs,  I’ve been able to piece together a truly fascinating life: a quintessentially American life at that- glued together by the love of his family and fueled by his own expansive, inquisitive mind.

Beginnings, Wanderings & Jumbo the Elephant

C.R. Tucker’s father George was a farmer and his mother Myra a homemaker. Although its assumed the Tucker family did not possess generational wealth based on the occupation of his father, pastures back then seemed greener in the American West, literally: especially for a farmer. With this in mind, when Charles was only four years old, he and his family traveled in a “prairie schooner”, better known as a covered wagon, in search of fortune to Missouri. That dream got detoured however, and the family pivoted north, to the state of Wisconsin. There, Charles found himself living in a log cabin for five years in the mid 1870s. Miraculously, a photograph of that log cabin survives to this day, and can be seen with this post. How many family’s in the 21st century can say their forebears grew up in a log cabin along with an actual picture to prove it?!

 

Personal history obviously made quite an impression on Charles. In keeping with the idea of “home”, an early cabinet card believed taken by him in the late 1880’s, when he was still in high school or early in college, shows the oldest known American home- then or now- in existence: the Fairbanks House in Dedham, MA. Even then, as an impressionable newcomer to photography, he must have known of its significance, one worthy of his early efforts behind the camera. In contrast to his old childhood log cabin, the Fairbanks house, dating to 1641, is the oldest surviving timber-frame house in North America.

In the Spring of his sophomore year at Tufts, April, 3, 1889, an opportunity featuring a different kind of home crossed paths with Tucker’s amateur photography skills. This took the form of the the newly built Barnum Museum of Natural History on campus. For the future secretary of the brand new Tufts Camera Club, Charles Tucker got to record history in photographing a unique specimen of the circus impresario Barnum: his former colossus, the now stuffed Jumbo the Elephant.  Mounted on a platform before being moved and placed on exhibit inside the new museum, Several of Tucker’s photographs, including the one with this post, were quickly turned into crude woodcuts: used to illustrate an article written by Tufts graduate and Boston Daily Globe reporter Julien C. Edgerly for the April 4, 1889 edition. In March, 2015, I used this original brown-toned, gelatin silver print of Jumbo mounted as a cabinet card to illustrate a news story on how Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was going to retire their performing pachyderms. Alas, other than a small photo not held by this archive of the artist’s dorm room, no other currently identified photographs taken by the college student-in the capacity of his camera club membership or otherwise- are known to survive.

But what of another future home, this time for the family residence of an older C.R. Tucker? A futuristic one of course, the perfect manifestation for someone who then made his living as a high school physics teacher. A revolutionary structure built ca. 1904-05, this abode was built entirely of concrete, owned by Tucker and his wife Mary as its second owners when purchased with the aid of a mortgage in 1906.

Designed by the important American architect Robert Waterman Gardner, who pioneered using reinforced concrete in residential construction, the home brought me down more than one rabbit hole in my research. Recently, with the evidence of several interior photographs of the home I purchased included with the Tucker “trove”, a wonderful discovery was made. This was an August, 1906 article (begins: p. 88) showcasing the residence in American Homes and Gardens magazine. Delightfully, who would show up in several of the uncredited halftone photographs published with this article? Tucker’s daughter Dorothy, a little over six years old, sitting by herself, unidentified, perched on the edge of the ground level veranda.

Located in the New Dorp area of Staten Island, N.Y. but unfortunately now demolished, the magazine lay claim at the time of publication that it was “the first building of this character to be constructed in New York City.” Historians of early concrete homes will find new things to ponder, and the article and published floor plans gave me further insight into the location and backdrop for many of the Dorothy and Tucker family photographs included in the larger archive.

 

A Public School Teaching Career Informed from the Age of 10

There he matriculated in an old red school house – Seems to have garnered a good deal out of it, too- 1949

…but wherever Charles Tucker is his heart and his camera capture children. Wherever he is he is the sun to which the children, like sunflowers, turn.  -The Alden Letter, 1950

Principal of Procter Academy, Provo, Utah, for one year; Principal of West Boylston, MA, High School; Submaster in Quincy, MA High School; Working in the Educational Department at the YMCA (Springfield, MA Training School); Assistant instructor in physics at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Physics teacher at Stapleton High School in New Brighton on Staten Island; Physics teacher at the brand-new Curtis High School on Staten Island; long-time professor of physics at Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. These teaching assignments made up the bulk of C.R. Tucker’s 45-year public teaching career, and could be looked on as a testament to his being a pragmatist in what surely were the fickle ministrations over the decades of an ever changing series of administrations.  But what can be assumed through it all, as evidenced by the above 1950 quote, is that the children and young adults he taught made it all worthwhile for him.

Reportedly warm in personality: a proven public speaker with the capacity for humor in telling a good story, he cuts a dashing figure in surviving photographs. Wearing an ever-present silk cravat but with the contradiction of tousled hair in throwing off the look in several surviving photographs, Tucker at the end of the day was a realist. To wit, in his 1956 obituary, his good friend E. Huling Woodworth, the deputy governor general of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, quoted Tucker that he went to New York City in the promotion of his teaching career: “simply because they paid me more money”. Around 1920, the amateur photographer seemed to have had enough however. Looking back much later in life, he said: “I tried teaching for 45 years; decided I couldn’t do it, and when they told me they would rather pay me than have me around, I bought a Vermont farm, but I kept on teaching, to try to pay farm expenses; I am now living on the interest of what I lost, trying to be a farmer”.

And all the while, the photographic evidence taken in promotion of his hobby, both inside and outside that teaching career, was most important to him. He used his amateur camera to photograph some of his students, even going as far as displaying mounted examples in his own home, and became, in effect, an in-house yearbook style photographer. For Curtis High School especially, Tucker photographed students and teachers alike. He also recorded events, like a class boat trip and sporting scenes: a panoramic showing a a long line of young women exulting in exercise- part of an outdoor gym class.

Preserved decades later by his son Stephen “Jerry” Tucker, and subsequently purchased by this archive many years after his passing, these mounted and unmounted photographs-some printed in platinum- are beautiful pictorialist records of early 20th Century American High School life. Some of the hand-written titles on the versos of just some of these mounted and unmounted photographs: “Curtis High School Girl”;  “Curtis High School Girl in Costume of a Play”; “Apple Blossoms”: a genre photograph celebrating Spring featuring a student wearing a long dress ornamented by sunflowers; “Curtis HS Elocution Teacher”, and many others.

Mayflower Descendant & Later Life

“I had a lot of fun tracing ancestry back to counts and no-accounts, especially the early American families. I found 6 Mayflower ancestors (John Alden was one) 11 Revolutionary ancestors, one Indian, one witch (hanged in Salem, 1692). The Ball and Adams families (whence President Washington and the Adams)”. –Charles Rollins Tucker

 

In the late 1930’s and through the early 1950’s, Tucker was living in Brooklyn and active as the Vice-President of The Alden Kindred of New York City and Vicinity. As a long-descended related “cousin” of Mayflower passenger John Alden, the Alden Kindred was then, and is still today, an active Mayflower descendant society named after English pilgrims John and Priscilla Mullins Alden. Before the untimely passing of the photographer’s wife Mary in 1940, Tucker and his wife would host chapter meetings in their home. Later, in the pages of the Alden Kindred “Gossip”, a newsletter reporting on the happenings of the society as well as the private accomplishments of its members, the musings regarding “cousin” Tucker were duly reported.

Here’s one example, from a 1949 “Gossip” article with the headline: Charles Rollins Tucker, (Expert with the Camera) showing that even at 80 years of age, the photographer was still passionate for a hobby believed to have begun in his high school years:

Now C.R.T’s. color photographs have carried his reputation along the eastern coast from Key West through Maine. He estimates that he has 3,000 slides. He is expert in catching the significant moods of flowering plants and of little children in their own habitat. His slides in Art League exhibits “steal the show”.

From the same article, the invocation of Shakespeare as poet ultimately defined him, his optimistic view of life made relevant from all its ordinary moments, and here, with photographic evidence for the ages:

Mr. Tucker loves people, but does not need them to keep himself happy and busy.- Shakespere climaxes him as “seeing good in everything”.

 

Historical Timeline: Charles Rollins Tucker: 1868-1956

1868: Born in Canton, MA on December 18. (source: Tufts College Yearbook) A major discrepancy exists: his headstone indicates 1869, and his 1956 obituary details in the Middleborough Gazette stated he died at 87 years old.

1880: Charles, 11, living with family in Hubbardston, Worcester, MA. His father George is a farmer and mother Myra a housekeeper. (George Lewis Tucker: Jan. 16, 1843-May 19, 1907) (Myra F. Tucker: 1848-1927)

1887: Graduates from Stoughton High School, Stoughton, MA. In his class of 15 students, he was one of only two who graduated. In 1892, his younger brother Lewis L. Tucker, would not graduate.

– Matriculates at Tufts College, Medford, MA in September, in the “Philosophical course”.

1889-90: At Tufts, he is Secretary of the Camera Club in his junior year and member in his senior year; Secretary and treasurer of Reading-Room Association, 1889-90; member of the Sketch Club as a sophomore; member of the tennis club earlier.

1890: He’s the Vice-President of the 1891 Junior class at Tufts; self-quotation listed in yearbook: “He has a lean and hungry look; such men are dangerous. -Shakspere“. As a junior, during the annual Prize Speaking and Reading ceremony at College Hall on June 10, he gives the speech: “Plea for the Old South Church”, by Phillips. First delivered in 1876 by Wendall Phillips, the speech saved the Boston landmark church from destruction, affirmingTucker’s interest in preserving and advocating for American history.

1891: Graduates Tufts with bachelors degree, Ph.B. in chemistry and physics.

– As principal of Somerset, MA High School, he began teaching pupils in 15 subjects, in the one-room school located on Pierce’s Bluff off of South Street.

1892: Principal of Procter Academy, Provo, Utah, for one year.

1894: Receives his Master of Arts from Tufts College.

1895: Principal of West Boylston, MA, High School.

1896: Submaster in Quincy, MA High School.

1897: Working in the Educational Department at the YMCA (Springfield, MA Training School)

1898: In September, becomes an assistant instructor in physics at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. 

– Marriage to Mary Carruthers on July 29 in Manhattan, New York.

1899: Daughter Dorothy born in Stoughton, MA on August 27.

1900: US Census: living with wife Mary and daughter Dorothy at 73 Clifton Place in Brooklyn.

– Family moves to 4 Wall Street in New Brighton on Staten Island.

1903: Tucker listed as a teacher in the High School Department at Public School 14 located at Broad and Brook Streets in Stapleton, Borough of Richmond, Staten Island. He most likely had been teaching here before 1903. (source: Directory of Teachers in the Public Schools 1903)

– Becomes a member of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences as well as the Natural Science Association of Staten Island.

1904: Transfers, from PS 14, to the brand new (George William) Curtis High School, where he continued teaching physics. Opened in February, Curtis was the first high school built on Staten Island. (source: notice: School: Devoted to the Public Schools and Educational Interests”, issue for December 25, 1903)

1905: His name appears on the Curtis High School teaching roster published in The Journal of the Board of Education of the City of New York. His yearly salary in 1905 is $1960.00, with a proposed increase for 1906 to $2042.50. His address continues to be 4 Wall Street in New Brighton.

– Receives an honorable mention in the Photo Era Portrait Competition.

1906: In October, Tucker and his wife take out a mortgage for a revolutionary home made entirely of concrete in New Dorp, Staten Island at 90 Third Street from Eleanor Gardner, believed to be the lender. Built ca. 1904-1905, it was designed by Robert Waterman Gardner, 1866-1937, president of the New York Society of Craftsmen, an architect who pioneered using reinforced concrete in residential construction. The Tucker’s were the second owners of the home after the first, W.J. Steel. 

– His photograph “The Mill”, taken in West Bridgewater, MA, is published in the June issue of the Photo-Era. It showed he was a member of The Postal Photographic Club of the United States. The accompanying article outlined the club was founded in early 1885, with membership strictly limited to 40 all residing east of the Ohio River.

1907: In January, a portrait of his daughter Dorothy holding a cat appears as part of an advertisement for Bausch and Lomb-Zeiss Tessar lenses “Home Portraits” in Camera Work XVII.

– Tucker now listed as member of the Postal Camera Club, with a history first dating to 1900 and a roster from around the country, including California.  One of his award-winning photographs for the club,  “Day Dreams”, held by this archive, was widely discussed and published in 1907.

– Writes article: “The Pleasures of Winter Photography”, for the December issue of Suburban Life Magazine.

1908: Gives a New York City public schools lecture: “Pictorial Photography” in November and December at Public Schools 62 and 63.

1910: American Photography magazine reports C.R. Tucker is a member of: “A New portfolio club has been organized among the advanced workers in the territory east of the Ohio River and north of Washington, D. C.” (other members include: W. H. Zerbe, C. F. Clarke, S. B. Phillips, Miss Katherine Bingham, H. W. Schonewolf and others) “Membership is by election after circulation of samples of work, and only those of marked ability are desired.”

1911: In what was probably a recalibration of the earlier 1910 portfolio club, The Photo Era announces the formation of: The New Postal Photographic Club: C.R. Tucker of New Dorp is a member: “A New pictorial Photographic Album Club has just been started. It has not yet been christened, but a vote is now being taken to determine its title.”

“The album is making its first round and the prints contained therein show most painstaking efforts to put it on a parity with any similar club of the country, and when we take into consideration the active and pictorial workers of this club, we feel justified in predicting its success.”

1914: Tucker’s first son,  John Robert Tucker, (1914-1991) is born on March 3 on Staten Island.

– Listed as being in charge of the Tottenville Annex of Curtis High School, and an assistant teacher of physics. Continues to live at 90 Third St., New Dorp, S.I. with the telephone # 922-J Tottenville (Ext. of P.S. 1)

1915: His second son, Stephen Jeremiah “Jerry” Tucker, (1915-2001) is born on April 24th in Vermont.

– At the Tottenville Annex, Tucker heads up the Junior Audubon (Society) Class. An article published by the Macmillan Co. states: “This class has no stated meetings, we are informed by Charles H. Tucker, (sic) the leader, but makes the study of birds a part of the regular work in biology, using the Educational Leaflets as a text-book, and paying especial attention to the economic value of the birds studies.”

1916: The January issue of The Museum Bulletin of the Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences lists a free illustrated lecture for children by Tucker: “A Visit to the Wisconsin Indians.” A later issue stated 100 people attended.

– While continuing to teach public school, Tucker is listed as President of the South Shore Savings and Loan Association, at No. 11 Sixth Street in New Dorp, Staten Island. The bank commenced business in 1915. The presidency of the bank was taken over by A.J. Grout in 1917, and he assumed that position through at least 1928.

1917: Charles and Mary Tucker sell house at 90 Third St. in April to Dr. Abel Joel and Grace Grout. The home was later purchased in 1922 by the Catholic Diocese for use as Our Lady Queen of Peace Rectory. The present rectory building was built in 1951 and is red brick. It’s assumed the Tucker’s concrete block home was leveled to build the present structure. From the history of the rectory: “Instead, he negotiated with Doctor Grout whose home was situated on Cloister Place and Third Street, but whose property flowed around the corner onto New Dorp Lane. The Grout Home was to become the rectory and the wooded land became the site of the church and school.”

– Dorothy Frances Tucker listed in Tufts College Jumbo Yearbook as matriculated and pursuing her AB degree. Lists being from New Dorp (Staten Island) and graduate of Curtis High School.

– Its believed around this time Tucker joined the faculty of Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. as professor of physics, with his 1956 obituary stating he retired from the school about 1939.

1920: Dorothy receives her Bachelor of Arts degree as a member of the Jackson College for Women at Tufts College on June 21 at the 64th Annual Commencement.

1925: On the New York State Census, Charles occupation is listed as teacher. He lives at 13 Greene Ave. in Brooklyn along with daughter Dorothy, also a teacher, and two younger sons.

1929: Mentioned in Alden Kindred “Gossip” that he was teaching at the Manuel Training High School of Brooklyn, N.Y. At the time, The Gossip was a publication of  The Alden Kindred of America, a Mayflower descendant society named after pilgrims John and Priscilla Mullins Alden.

– Additionally mentioned in the “Gossip” this year- pertaining to his photo skills:  “The Green Mountain Club has awarded a second prize in a photographic contest to our Cousin C. R. Tucker of Brooklyn and Randolph, Vt. The scene is a delightful section of Lake Mansfield and Nebraska Notch with a cross section of mountain region which is almost impossible to catch with a camera and keep the picture clear in perspective. Both in composition and development very careful thought had been given and the prize was well deserved.”

1932: Writes poem:

Freedom  

When the city’s narrow street

Meets the broad highway and gives

Glimpse of space and sky and cloud

Beyond the noisy throngs that crowd,

That is momentary joy.

But when at last my sentence here shall end

Free from this ceaseless shirl of work

and care

(Another waits to better fill my place)

I can forever leave this noisy race,

That will be lasting joy.

1933: Living at 13 Greene Ave. Brooklyn. During this time and much later, Tucker was the Vice-President of The Alden Kindred of New York City and Vicinity.

1934: Charles and Mary Tucker living at 108 South Elliott Place, Brooklyn.

1935: Notice in the Alden Kindred Gossip that Charles Tucker had retired from his teaching job in New York City: “Extra! Extra! Charles Rollins Tucker has retired and does not expect to teach in New York City any longer. The family is moving to Vermont immediately, where their address is “Route 2, Randolph”. Mr. Tucker writes that they will miss the Alden meetings and often think of us on the first Saturday of the month, and shall look eagerly for “GOSSIP”.  Bon voyage; bon repose.” (note: his obituary stated he worked until around 1939)

1936:  From the “Gossip”: “In August, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Rollins Tucker drove to Ann Arbor, Mich.,via Saratoga, Howes Caverns, Niagara Falls, through Ontario to Detroit, and back by way of Toledo, the Cleveland Fair, Adirondacks, Ticonderoga, Brandon Pass, & c. Son Bob enrolled at the University of Michigan as a senior. The Tuckers will live In Ann Arbor during the Winter, leaving Randolph September 15th. Before going, they were to visit their daughter, Dorothy Tinkham, mother of 2 children, at Rock, Mass.” (Rock Village was located in the town of Middleborough)

1939: Is reported from obituary to have retired from his public school teaching career.

1940: US Census: Tucker living with wife Mary and son Jerry in Randolph, VT

– Mary Carruthers Tucker dies in Boston.

1943: (approx.) Starts Wintering in Mt. Dora, Florida. (one address printed in the Gossip was 916 Grandview Ave.)

1949: The following overview of the life of Tucker appeared in the May issue of The Alden Letter, No. 47:

CHARLES ROLLINS TUCKER, (EXPERT WITH THE CAMERA.)

In the 28 April, 1949 issue of Mount Dora Topic ( Mount Dora, Lake Co., Fla.) Mabel Norris Reese has expressed something of the lovableness and gentle humor which characterize our Alden Kindred official member, Charles Rollins Tucker.

The author quotes from Mr. Tucker: “I tried teaching for 45 years; decided I couldn’t do it, and when they told me they would rather pay me than have me around, I bought a Vermont farm, but I kept on teaching, to try to pay farm expenses; I am now living on the interest of what I lost, trying to be a farmer”.

It was like Charles Tucker to say nothing of the heartbreak when Death took his companionable wife, while they were still Vermonters. Nor is there mention of the 1938 hurricane which crashed through their precious capital, in sugar maple groves.

Nothing of the anxious loneliness while World War II held son, Jerry, for 4 years in the Pacific.

Miss Reese notes that Charles was born in Canton, Mass.; at 4 years, with his family traveled in a prairie schooner to Missouri; shortly afterward moved on to Wisconsin for 5 years in a log cabin; at 10 returned with the rest of the Tuckers to Massachusetts.

There he matriculated in an old red school house – Seems to have garnered a good deal out of it, too- He went to Tufts College and a bachelor degree in 1891. But “not satisfied with being a bachelor, I took another college year to be a Master.”

Charles began teaching pupils in 15 subjects, in a one-room Mass. school; continued teaching as principal of an academy In Utah; went to New York City – “simply because they paid me more money”: stayed there for the rest of his teaching life, as a high school instructor.

As to Charles Tucker’s avocations, he says regarding genealogy: “I had a lot of fun tracing ancestry back to counts and no-accounts, especially the early American families. I found 6 Mayflower ancestors (John Alden was one) 11 Revolutionary ancestors, one Indian, one witch (hanged in Salem, 1692). The Ball and Adams families (whence President Washington and the Adams)”.

Now C.R.T’s. color photographs have carried his reputation along the eastern coast from Key West through Maine. He estimates that he has 3,000 slides.

He is expert in catching the significant moods of flowering plants and of little children in their own habitat. His slides in Art League exhibits “steal the show”.

Mr. Tucker loves people, but does not need them to keep himself happy and busy.- Shakespere climaxes him as “seeing good in everything”.

He spent last October alone in Aldenwood, N.C. a mountain cabin – in a wide spread community of 14 houses, 90 souls and 5 surnames: McCall, Anderson, Devore, Hogshed, Owen. They were 17 miles from a grocery store, 25 miles from a movie – One day the community jammed a mountain schoolhouse to see for the first time an outside world interpreted to them by Chas. Tucker.

For 6 years Mr. Tucker has spent his winters in Florida. Last Dec. 18 he was quietly reading away his 80 anniversary when he heard whispers and stifled giggles: The door flew open, and there a host of children were shouting, “Нарру Birthday, Mr. Tucker!” The head ones were bearing a table radio, which the younglings had “chipped in” to get for their most beloved friend. When Mr. Tucker centers a group of little people, one is minded of a scene in Galilee 2,000 years ago.

Mr. Tucker generally comes back to Middleboro, Mass. in a leisurely trip – This year he is trying to reach Aldenwood, N.C. while the shrubbery, delayed by unseasonable cold spells is in top bloom. Two years ago he and son Jerry took 2300 miles of mountain and valley loveliness into their trailer home of 21 days – Throngs of people have gone along with them.

The children of C.R. and Mrs. Tucker could not but be fine also- S. Jerry, after his 4 years of Pacific war service is with the N.H. Cattle Breeding Ass’n, John Robert is in U.S. Testing Co., Hoboken, N.J., Dorothy, the oldest, retired from Harvard U. library work to be a wife and mother on a Middleboro, Mass. farm. At an annual meeting of Alden Kindred in Duxbury a few years ago we heard this proudest grandfather ever, presenting a lovely first grandbaby as “Miss Priscilla Alden, Barbara Standish” – I think her real name is Barbara Tinkham – and that now other grandchildren have carried on the Alden Standish lines.  (pp. 295-7)

1951: Attends 60th reunion of his class at Tufts College, renamed Tufts University in 1955.

1956: Charles Rollins Tucker passes away near Middleboro, Mass., on Monday, May 28.

Obituary: The Alden Letter: No. 132, June, 1956

CHARLES ROLLINS TUCKER, former Vice-President of the Alden Kindred of New York City and Vicinity, went to sleep in his chair, in his tiny little home near Middleboro, Mass., on Monday, May 28 1956, and never woke up. His funeral service was conducted by a Congregational minister the following Thursday, and Burial was in Maplewood Cemetery, Stoughton, Mass. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. Roland Tinkham of Middleboro, two sons, Jerry Tucker of Susquehanna, Pa. and Robert Tucker of Teaneck, N.J., three grandchildren and at least one great-grandchild. His wife, the late Mary (Carruthers) Tucker, died in 1940.

Mr. Tucker would have been 88 in December and was born at Canton, Mass. He graduated from Tufts College in 1891 and attended the 60th reunion of his class in 1951. He held the degree of Bachelor of Arts and also Master of Arts.

After teaching in Utah some years, he returned East and was in YMCA work for a short time and taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. He then entered the New York City public school system and served as teacher and principal on Staten Island. But the major portion of his teaching career was as professor of physics at Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. He retired about 1939.

For many years, he retained a summer home on a 125-acre farm at Randolph, Vermont, where several of the New York Kindred visited him. He was an ardent hiker and had several times hiked the entire Long Trail of Vermont, from Massachusetts to Canada. After retirement, he gave up the Vermont farm and he and Mrs. Tucker went to live with their daughter at Middleboro. Mrs. Tucker soon died, and Mr. Tucker established a little summer home near his daughter’s house. He spent his winters in Florida, except for one winter sojourn in Phoenix, Arizona, and the last two winters when he stayed in Massachusetts. For several years, in going to and from Florida, he spent the months of May and October at ALDENWOOD, the mountain cabin of the Huling Woodworths in western North Carolina. He took thousands of color photographs and gave slide showings in Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Many people have had many hours of enjoyment from his beautiful slides and the sweet whimsicality of his accompanying comments. He will be sorely missed by many.

Alden Letter is indebted to Huling Woodworth, his host at Aldenwood, for the outline of Mr. Tucker’s life quoted above. June 8, ’56.  E.A.P.  (Eudora Alden Philip-editor) note: E. Huling Woodworth was the deputy governor general of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants who compiled the “Mayflower Register” of descendants. He died in 1964.

A little over seven years ago, this archive finally acquired the monumental European portfolio Nach der Natur, (After Nature) published in Berlin in early 1897.

Composed of 32 sumptuous hand-pulled photogravure plates, I learned it was considered a cornerstone to any important collection of artistic photography when first reading about it almost 25 years ago. And, as persistence can sometimes pay off, a Dresden antiquarian bookseller listed the folio, along with other titles, appearing in my inbox in March of 2017. The portfolio itself is the artistic historical record for Berlin’s 1896 Inter­national Exhibition of Amateur Photography (Internationalen Ausstellung für Amateur-Photographie) held in the Reichstag building, the German government’s legislative headquarters, which had newly opened two years prior in mid 1894.

Approximately 580 exhibitors took part from around the world, with one reviewer commenting that other than the scientific entries, in terms of mounted photographs: “there may have been several thousand of them”. The exhibition had the support of Victoria, Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia, the first born child of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: a chip off the proverbial block per chance? It’s well known Albert had a passion for employing early photography to document the British Royal family.

Due to this work being an important influence on the perception of photography as art in the public discourse during the last years of the 19th century, I’ve dedicated some time in pulling contemporary reviews for the exhibition, and have further translated the entirety of the letterpress for the portfolio, along with acknowledgements, etc. from editor Franz Goerke and the main portfolio essay penned by Richard Stettiner. I will continue my thoughts at the conclusion of this post on the importance of the photogravure plates from this work and how it influenced Alfred Stieglitz in America, with the baton first taken up by Goerke- an important proponent of the photogravure process. Goerke had shown a series of mounted photogravures at the exhibition- logically continuing his favored reproduction process by assembling Nach der Natur as a remembrance of it. But first, some contemporary excerpts laying out differing perceptions of the 1896 Berlin exhibition by the German photographic press:

Observations: The German Photographic Press (translated)

Photographische Mitteilungen, Berlin: October, 1896: reviewer Paul Hanneke:

⎯  On September 3rd, the international exhibition for amateur photography opened in the new Reichstag building. The choice of location is certainly a very fortunate one, because as a sight in Berlin, it already exerts a certain attraction on the public. The rooms made available for the photography exhibition are on the first floor and are large enough to be able to arrange the numerous pictures etc. received in a clear order. Unfortunately, the lighting conditions are sometimes quite unfavorable, so that some beautiful pieces do not really come into their own. The exhibition itself is richly represented by all parts of the world, namely Austria, England, France and Belgium, which are countries that have participated heavily and are distinguished by their outstanding achievements, especially in artistic terms.  (1.)

Wiener Photographische Blätter, Vienna: November, 1896: reviewer Ludwig David:

⎯ Respectfully withholding commentary for work shown at the exhibition by his own club: “the Vienna School has taken its place with honor”, David gives overall thoughts and then offers criticism for individual works at the exhibition from their respective countries, England, France, Belgium, etc: “The exhibition was divided into several sections in order to keep the representations of artistic photography and those serving scientific purposes separate. The fact that the exhibition was housed in the stately, wide rooms of the new Reichstag building ensured that it was well attended, as many people were enticed to get to know the interior design and the beauties of this new building. The large number of visitors, around 26,000 people, can also be attributed to the keen interest shown in the exhibition by Berlin’s upper class.

⎯  All of the pictures that were not for scientific purposes, there may have been several thousand of them, were housed partly in the corridors, which receive their scant light from the courtyards of the building, and partly in a large domed structure that connects these corridors and has a skylight. In these rooms there was room for all the pictures that are understood under the somewhat cumbersome and tasteless name of “amateur photographs.” There was no separation of the pictures of an artistic nature from the majority of pictures that do not claim this designation.”

⎯  From America, David singles out William Boyd Post, Clarence Moore, C.R. Pancoast, Charles I. Berg, Emma Justine Farnsworth, A. Eidenmüller (St. Paul) and Alfred Stieglitz: …“a well-known master whose fame was not first established at this exhibition. Most of his pictures are no longer new either. “A wet day, with its drastic rainy mood is outstanding; “Scurrying home“, two old Dutch women walking through the countryside, is picturesque, a splendid picture printed in sepia.

⎯  It must be said of the exhibition itself that it has fully fulfilled its task of giving a picture of the current state of photography. The arrangers, who had to deal with an enormous amount of material, deserve credit for having handled this task in a skilful manner: among others, Dr. Neuhauss has done particularly well for the scientific department of photography, and Mr. Franz Goerke for the artistic department. The light in the exhibition room was not sufficient in all places, the pictures were often too close together and hung much too high. It would also have been advisable to separate the pictures with a painterly effect from the works that were not of the same quality and to have the admission and award jury for this section comprise only recognized artists.” (2.)

Photographische Correspondenz, Vienna & Leipzig: October, 1896: Unknown reviewer(s):

⎯  Would you like a picture of the international exhibition for amateur photography in Berlin? If you call a horse a crocodile, you have used a nomenclature that is just as correct as calling this exhibition an amateur exhibition, assuming that you assume that the amateur does photography for pleasure.

It would actually be time to divide amateur photographers into two classes: amateurs who turn to the subject out of scientific interest and pursue serious studies for their own development, and dilettantes who only engage in photography per diletto, for pleasure and to pass the time. Even with this classification, the name of the exhibition would hardly be correct, because it contains universal material in which the specific arts and crafts play a large part; it shows the enormous expansion of photography in our time, of which portrait photography is only a very small individual case. Due to this versatility, one could say that the exhibition is filled with the work of professional photographers.

⎯ There is hardly an area of ​​art and science that does not have a connection with photography. This explains the lively interest shown in this technique even in the highest circles, and which finds its most striking expression in the fact that Her Majesty the Empress Frederick has granted the exhibition her patronage.

⎯ The exhibition not only gives a picture of art and science, no, it gives a description of the world in pictures, which ranges from the mists of emerging worlds to the tiniest creatures that treacherously gnaw at the health of our bodies; and those who are prevented by unfavorable circumstances from following their urge to travel far away will find satisfaction here, because Mother Earth is presented to them from the snow-covered peaks of the highest mountains to the deepest shafts of the burrowing miners, from the islands of the South Seas circling the globe to the west, to the magnificent landscapes of California.

⎯ On the whole, the practice of platinum and pigment processes predominate. Matte collodion paper is also often used, but cannot compete with the first-mentioned processes in terms of artistic impression, not least because of the bluish cold tone of the background, which is one of the disadvantages of stencil-based photography. Pictures with a glossy surface are only found in small numbers and least of all where the artistic effect of the picture is important.

⎯ We now enter the round domed hall, which has an international character. We would like to call it the fermentation vat of the exhibition, because here it ripples and foams and struggles for new means of expression and creates bubbles, some of which disintegrate, while others condense into core points around which new structures arrange themselves. Here you can hear the professional photographers cry out in horror, and yet they should be able to explain why a considerable number of visitors describe these works in particular as painterly and virtuosic. Does the secessionist idea have any justification alongside the traditional art forms? It undoubtedly deserves to be examined for its causes, its nature and its relationship to the traditional. It is the absolutely unfamiliarity that has a repulsive effect on the professional photographers here. They are used to looking at the world through photographic glasses and do not believe that it looks completely different in reality. But photography is old enough that these glasses will need new lenses that are a bit sharper. A picture that is hung on the wall must not be too small and must have a different, less decorative character than a picture that is kept in an album for intimate viewing. For this reason, the large pictures at the exhibition are so much more effective than the small pictures that one has to look at with a trained eye. (3.)

Compatriots in Photogravure: Franz Goerke & Alfred Stieglitz

And who was responsible for these “sumptuous hand-pulled photogravure plates” contained in Nach der Natur? The Photographische Gesellschaft in Berlin. As I’ve noted elsewhere on this site, the proper name of this atelier is The Berlin Photographic Company. Established in 1862 in Berlin, Germany with retail and distribution branch offices located in New York, London and Paris, this large art publishing house was founded by the brothers Christian “Albert” Eduard Werckmeister, (1827-1873) an engineer and chemist, and “Friedrich” Gustav Werckmeister, (1839-1894) a painter and etcher. The concern was collectively owned and run by their younger brother Emil Werckmeister. (1844-1923) The majority of their efforts concerned the reproduction and sale of engravings and notable oil paintings by master artists in the collections of major museums and collections throughout Europe, with the permanent process of photogravure a specialty of the house.

The establishment of fine photogravure production in Europe, including the earlier noteworthy efforts of Walter L. Colls in London for his Linked Ring Salon folios and Photo Club de Paris folios by Charles Wittmann in Paris set a very high bar for the future published efforts of Franz Goerke in Berlin and Alfred Stieglitz in New York.

After his publication of Nach der Natur, Goerke, (1856-1931) an important exponent of German art photography, took on the project of being editor and publisher for Die Kunst in der Photographie, (The Art of Photography) published in Berlin from from 1897-1908. Many of the hundreds of fine photogravure plates making up the run of DKIDP beginning with 1897 can be found in this archive. A founder along with others in 1889 of the Free Photographic Association in Berlin, Franz Goerke’s promotion of photography as art is summed up as part of his Preface to Nach der Natur:  

“The seed has been sown by this exhibition. May it bear rich fruit. Above all, it should convince those who still see artistic photography as a useless and pointless game that there is a deep and serious desire in amateur circles to raise photography to the status of art and to place it alongside other arts.”

An amateur photographer himself, Goerke’s passion as publisher and editor certainly piqued the interest of Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) in New York, a self-taught amateur photographer whose formal education included mechanical engineering, beginning in October, 1882, when he enrolled in the all male Technical University of Berlin (Technische Hochschule) and later photochemistry at the same institution- taught by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel. (1834-1898) An authority on orthochromatic photography, Vogel became a mentor to the young Stieglitz, and he later founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft von Freunden der Photographie (German Society of the Friends of Photography) in 1887.

At the conclusion of his university studies and Continental wanderings, Stieglitz returned to the US in September, 1890 at the passing of his sister Flora. At the urging of his father Edward, he soon became involved with the business venture of photoengraving: first at the struggling Heliochrome Company in lower Manhattan, which he eventually restructured. Taking on his two former Berlin roommates Louis Schubart and Joseph Obermeyer as partners, this concern was rechristened the Photochrome Engraving Company. Photogravure was a specialty, but Stieglitz soon became involved in other ventures-first co-editing the American Amateur Photographer in 1893, ultimately rising to sole editor in January, 1895, the increased workload among his other interests giving him “the opportunity to disentangle himself from the Photochrome Engraving Company”. (4.) Even without having a direct hand in his own atelier, by the time he received his copy of the Nach der Natur portfolio in late 1897, his obvious delight and respect for the photogravure plates executed within by the Photographische Gesellschaft in Berlin under Goerke’s mindful watch gave him obvious delight. This in turn gave him reason to author a review of the portfolio in the pages of the new publication Camera Notes, the journal of the New York Camera Club. Paraphrasing, his reaction to the quality of these plates proclaimed photogravure: “the most perfect of all photographic reproduction processes.” (5.)

The review in its entirety: “Nach der Natur” is without doubt the most elaborate and beautiful publication which has yet appeared in photographic literature.

The series of photogravures which form the bulk of the book, include pictures by the chief medallists of the Exhibition. Among the familiar names we find: Henneberg, Alexandre, Hannon, Farnsworth, Stieglitz, Le Beque, Bremard, Baynton, Esler, David, Boehmer, etc. The text, which serves as an introduction to the pictures, is an essay, which tries to prove that pictorial photography may be an art. Even if all the pictures selected may not prove the case most of them are perfect gems. The photogravures, as such, are beautiful specimens of the most perfect of all photographic reproduction processes.

The library of every photographic club should include this important work, as those interested in pictorial photography will find every phase of it well represented. A copy has been procured for the Camera Club Library.  A.S. (6.)

Stieglitz would go on to publish his own portfolio of fine photogravures: Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies in 1897, (N.Y.: R.H. Russell) the same year Nach der Natur appeared. On the other side of the Atlantic, Goerke’s  own Die Kunst in der Photographie, which should be considered the most important European publication directly inspiring the fine photogravures that soon appeared under the editorship of Stieglitz’s Camera Notes, would in turn lead him elevating the process to its apogee in the US: his groundbreaking and seminal venture Camera Work, published between 1903-17.

⎯ David Spencer  October, 2024

 

1.  Excerpt: Paul Hanneke: Internationale Ausstellung für Amateur – Photographie zu Berlin , Photographische Mitteilungen, Berlin: October, 1896: pp. 205-209/ continues: pp. 219-224; 235-37.

2. Excerpt: Ludwig David: “Die künstlerische Richtung auf der internationalen Ausstellung für Amateur-Photographie in Berlin,” Wiener Photographische Blätter, Wien: 3:11 (November 1896), pp. 201–215

3.Excerpt: “Berliner Nachrichten. September 1896.”, Photographische Correspondenz, Vienna & Leipzig: October, 1896: from unknown reviewer(s): (article signed: “Von der Hasenhaide”) pp. 471-477

4. Julia Thompson: Stieglitz’s Portfolios and Other Published Photographs: Alfred Stieglitz Key Set, NGA Online Editions, accessed September, 2024

5. Camera Notes, New York: Vol. 1, issue III: January, 1898

6. Ibid, p. 85

A German photographic journal published under the cooperation of the Camera Club of Vienna was the Photographisches Centralblatt.  (Photographic Central Sheet or Photographic Journal)  First appearing in October of 1895 (1) and ending under its own imprint in 1903,  it was published twice monthly and priced at 1 Mark. Title page information beginning in 1898 indicates it was first published on the fifth of each month, and included at least one hand-pulled photogravure as well as numerous full-page halftone plates. The second monthly issue came out on the 20th and featured mostly technical articles and club news.

Select examples of Photographisches Centralblatt: 1895  1898   1899  1900  1901  1902  1903

Professor Fritz Schmidt, a lecturer and head of the Photographic Institute based at Karlsruhe Palace (then part of the Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule and presently The University of Karlsruhe), was the journals first publisher and editor. Schmidt, specializing in the technical aspects of photography,  held his position at the Hochschule since 1888 (2) and was the author of Photographisches Fehlerbuch, (Photographic Mistakes) a volume first published in 1895, the same year Photographisches Centralblatt appeared. Successive expanded editions of Schmidt’s Fehlerbuch included reviews like the following which appeared   in 1900:

“This is a quite encyclopaedic reference book of the causes of, and remedies for, all the fogs, stains, spots, and other ills that photographic plates and papers can develop. They are classified under processes and in many cases illustrated by lithographic plates. It is a textbook of photography which enforces its lessons in the school of experience, and for this reason is probably the most scientifically arranged manual existent. For it takes facts as its basis, and the motto on its title-page ought to be Experientia docet.” (Experience is the best teacher)  3.
 
Initially, Karlsruhe publisher Otto Nemnich, responsible for issuing Schmidt’s technical volume, printed the Photographisches Centralblatt.

But as a photographic publication, Centralblatt apparently lacked a distinct mission. Its featured technical content and photographic illustrations were both similar to  those found in Das Atelier des Photographen as well as Photographische Rundschau, (4) (although picture editor Ernst Juhl in 1896 began a revitalization of the Photographische Rundschau) two photographic journals published by Wilhelm Knapp in Halle. Perhaps due to similarity, a new direction was sought for Centralblatt.

In this regard, Fritz Matthies-Masuren (1873-1938) would be its savior. Now known as one of one of the most important proponents of early artistic photography in Germany and the Continent as well as a frequent correspondent with Alfred Stieglitz in America, Matthies-Masuren spent part of his formative artistic education studying painting among other creative endeavors at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, enrolling in 1894 (5) when he was 20 or 21 years of age. By 1896, he had become an avid photographer with an interest in breaking down conventional photographic wisdom. In October of 1897 he moved to Munich, accepting the managing editorship responsible for among other things, the journals photographic illustrations from its new publisher Georg D.W. Callwey. 6.
 
A surviving year-end title page from the 1897 volume of Centralblatt (7) included the following subtitle: Internationale Rundschau auf dem Gesamt-Gebiete der Photographie. (International review on all aspects of Photography) But with Callwey as new publisher, the January 1898 issue was launched with a new design as well as content. (8) To put an emphasis on its new direction in relation to artistic photography, the subtitle was changed to Zeitschrift für Künstlerische und Wissenschaftliche Photographie. (Journal of Artistic and Scientific Photography) Professor Fritz Schmidt stayed on as editor through 1898, (9) but the title page for the bound volume issued by Callwey at the end of the year omitted his name altogether, listing Matthies-Masuren as sole editor.

In neighboring Austria,  the publication of the final issue of the Vienna Camera Club journal Wiener Photographische Blätter occurred in December 1898, but the club was able to continue its mission by teaming up with the Photographisches Centralblatt beginning in 1899. Professor Franz Schiffner, who edited Wiener Photographische Blätter for its entire 1894-1898 run, now joined Matthies-Masuren as co-editor of the journal. With a background in technical photography, specializing in photogrammetry, (photographic surveying) Schiffner as early as 1888 had been a Professor at the Austro-Hungarian Naval Base Secondary School in Pola. (today Pula, Croatia) (10) By 1892, as indicated in the volume Imperial and Royal Gazette for the Ministry of Culture and Education, he was listed as teaching at an undetermined secondary school in a Vienna municipality. 11.

1898 was a watershed year for Matthies-Masuren and especially for European photographic pictorialism. Besides his responsibilities as co-editor, he mounted, according to its’ published catalogue, 304 photographs as part of the Elite-Ausstellung künstlerischer Photographien (International Exhibition of Artistic Photographs) at the end of the year in the Munich Secession:

“The aim of this exhibition was, among other things, to confirm that art photography was on an equal footing with the other media in the fine arts hierarchy and, at the same time, to encourage painters to “use this new, independent means of expression…” 12.

Monthly issues (published on the fifth of each month) of the Centralblatt during 1898 were devoted to the work of a particular photographer, which certainly made it stand out among other photographic publications. The Hofmeister brothers, Georg Einbeck, Prof. Paul Hoecker, Carl Winkel, Otto Scharf, Otomar Anschütz, Dr. Hugo Henneberg, Robert Demachy and even Fritz Matthies-Masuren for the February issue were all featured in the journal for 1898. A snapshot of the contents page for January, 1898 lists correspondence relating to art-photography from a wide European geography: Berlin, Danzig, Dresden, Hamburg, Paris, Prag and Vienna. In addition, club news from Chemnitz, Darmstadt and Dresden appear. 13.

Sometime after 1900, Halle an der Saale publisher Wilhelm Knapp took over the journal from Georg D.W. Callwey. By 1902, the title had been changed to Photographisches Central-Blatt. Additionally, Georg Aarland, a professor and head of the photographic and photo-mechanical departments at Leipzig’s Imperial Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookbinding (14) joined Matthies-Masuren and Franz Schiffner as editor.

Finally, in 1903, the decision had been made by Wilhelm Knapp to combine Photographisches Central-Blatt with their other journal, Photographische Rundschau, most likely for reasons of economy. Aarland was replaced by Rundschau editor Richard Neuhauss and Knapp issued the journal for 1903 using the same sequence of hand-pulled photogravure plates included with that years Photographische Rundschau, even retaining the Rundschau imprints on several of the gravure plates. (15) From 1904-1911, its new title became the Photographische Rundschau und Photographisches Centralblatt.

Our online Photographisches Centralblatt galleries include the majority of its photogravure supplements as well as other plates for 1898-1903.

Notes:

1. ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ENTRY #11598: PHOTOCOLL: BIBLIOTHEK UND AUFSATZDATENBANK ZUR PHOTOGRAPHIE COLLECTION DR. R.H. KRAUSS
2. JOSEF MARIA EDER: HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TRANSLATED BY EDWARD EPSTEAN: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS: NEW YORK: 1945: P. 687
3. PRINTS: PHOTOGRAPHISCHES FEHLERBUCH: IN: THE PHOTOGRAM AND THE PROCESS PHOTOGRAM: EDITED BY H. SNOWDEN & CATHERINE WEED WARD: DAWBARN & WARD, LTD.: LONDON: VOLUME VII: 1900: P. 325
4. MÜNCHEN — DAS ›PHOTOGRAPHISCHE CENTRALBLATT ‹: IN: KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE UM 1900-DIE SAMMLUNG FRITZ MATTHIES-MASUREN 1873-1938: CHRISTINE KÜHN: STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN: 2003: P. 17
5. IBID: P. 10
6. IBID: P. 17
7. PHOTOSEED ARCHIVE
8. KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE UM 1900: P. 17
9. PHOTOSEED ARCHIVE
10. SCHIFFNER BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE: FROM: LECTURE DELIVERED ON DECEMBER 21, 1888: “ÜBER PHOTOGRAPHISCHE MESSKUNST”: IN: ORGAN DER MILITÄR-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN VEREINE: VOLUME XXXVII, 1889: WIEN: VERLAG DES MILITÄR-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN VEREINES: PP. 49-55
11.  SCHIFFNER LISTING: IN: VERORDNUNGSBLATT FÜR DEN DIENSTBEREICH DES K. K. MINISTERIUMS FÜR CULTUS UND UNTERRICHT: JAHRGANG 1892: WIEN: VERLAG DES K.K. MINISTERIUMS FÜR CULTUS UND UNTERRICHT: P. CLXIII
12. SYMBOLISM AND PICTORIALISM-THE INFLUENCE OF EUGÈNE CARRIÈRE’S PAINTING ON ART PHOTOGRAPHY AROUND 1900: ULRICH POHLMANN: IN: IMPRESSIONIST CAMERA: PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN EUROPE, 1888-1918 : MERRELL PUBLISHERS : 2006 : P. 87 
13. INHALT: IN: PHOTOGRAPHISCHES CENTRALBLATT: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR KÜNSTLERISCHE UND WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHOTOGRAPHIE: HERAUSGEBER UND LEITER: PROFESSOR F. SCHMIDT-KARLSRUHE I. B.: MÜNCHEN: VERLAG VON GEORG D.W. CALLWEY: IV JAHRG.: HEFT 1: JANUARY, 1898.
14. AARLAND OBITUARY: IN: THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY: HENRY GREENWOOD & CO. : LONDON: APRIL 12, 1907: P. 282
15. PHOTOGRAPHISCHES CENTRAL-BLATT: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR KÜNSTLERISCHE UND WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHOTOGRAPHIE: REDIGIERT VON F. MATTHIES-MASUREN- HALLE A. S., DR. R. NEUHAUSS-GROSS- LICHTERFELDE O. UND PROF. F. SCHIFFNER-WIEN: DRUCK UND VERLAG VON WILHELM KNAPP: HALLE A. S. 1903

The English copperplate engraver, amateur photographer and Linked Ring Brotherhood member Walter L. Colls (1860-1942) (1.) was the son of  fine art dealer Lebbeus Colls, 1818-1897. (2.)

 

See examples of Work from the Walter L. Colls Atelier in this archive:

• Pictorial Photographs : A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1895
• Pictorial Photographs : A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1896

 

He developed an interest in amateur photography sometime before 1885. Early efforts were exhibited at the London Exhibition of Amateur Photography that year, where the London correspondent E.R.P. writing on April 30th for the Boston-based cycling magazine Outing described his entries- A Few Instantaneous Bits as: “Among other good work deserving of special mention are…a capital group of swans on the water; several really very fine”.  (3.)

Colls soon began exhibiting in the Royal Photographic Society exhibitions beginning in 1887 and later showed examples of his engraved commission work with them into the early 1900’s. Known by his professional Linked Ring pseudonym Aquafortist when first inducted in 1892, he later served as part of the Photographic Salon’s General Committee responsible for picture selection. In 1895, Colls received The Linked Ring’s commission to produce an annual portfolio of photogravures for the Salon exhibits from 1895-1897.

Initially trained as an artist, (4.) Colls had come from a family immersed in photography since the calotype era, as his father and uncle Richard Colls had exhibited “Sun pictures” before (presumably) he was born as early as 1851. (5.) At some point, most likely in the early 1870’s, he learned the trade and art of copperplate engraving and became a specialist in the area of reproducing photographs by this method, probably after joining Alfred Dawson’s London firm The Typographic Etching Company. Before leaving in late 1888 or early 1889, he had climbed the ranks to become chief photo-etcher. (6.)

At around this time or earlier, he became good friends with English photographer (born Cuba) Peter Henry Emerson. They both are named vice-presidents in the newly formed (1888) West London Photographic Society beginning in 1889.  (7.)
Before leaving the Typographic Etching Company, Colls had partnered along with Alfred Dawson to produce the photogravures for Emerson’s book Wild Life on a Tidal Water (published 1890). (8.)

Emerson may have been directly responsible for Colls leaving this firm, or at least giving him the opportunity to do so after singing his praises and quoting him directly on his  Methods of Reproducing Negatives from Nature for the Copper-Plate Press in his groundbreaking book Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art. (1889) An excerpt:

Mr. Colls is a careful worker and perhaps therein lies the secret of his success. It is perhaps invidious to select a firm for special mention, but as the results of Mr. Colls are in every way so superior when artistically considered, we feel it our duty to record the fact here for the benefit of the student. (9.)

 In 1889, he produced the large-plate photogravure Breezy Marshland (22 x15”) for Emerson (10.) and went on to personally teach him the process of photogravure after Emerson purchased his own copperplate press.

Walter Colls commission work focused mainly on the production of copper plates for the reproduction of artwork, but occasionally he would combine his talents as a photographer. One interesting collaboration involved working with his brother Harry Colls, himself a fine artist and illustrator. Harry Colls provided the majority of the artwork (done 1896-97) and his brother the photographs for the first volume of the 1901 book The Tower of London. (11.)

As late as 1929, Colls continued to work from his Barnes studio, printing the copper plates executed by illustrator David Jones for a limited edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (12.)

 

NOTES:

1.  WALTER LEBBEUS COLLS: B. SEPTEMBER, 1860: KENSINGTON DISTRICT OF LONDON: D.  MARCH, 1942: BARNES IN THE SURREY N.E. DISTRICT. COLLS MARRIED FLORENCE MARY DRURY-LOWE (B. 1885) AND PRODUCED A SON: STACY WALTER DRURY COLLS: B. JUNE, 1907: SOURCES: FAMILYSEARCH.ORG, FREE BMD AND ANCESTRY.COM
2. COLLS BIOGRAPHY: PHOTOLONDON WEBSITE: 2011. HIS OLDER BROTHER HARRY COLLS: B. 1856 WAS A MARINE PAINTER.
3. OUTING-AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF RECREATION: VOL. VI: 1885: THE WHEELMAN COMPANY: BOSTON: P. 484
4. PHOTO-MECHANICAL PROCESSES: IN: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: SECOND EDITION REVISED: LONDON: 1890: P. 209
5. REPORTS BY THE JURIES-ON THE SUBJECTS IN THE THIRTY CLASSES INTO WHICH THE EXHIBITION WAS DIVIDED: WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS: LONDON: 1852: P. 278
6. EXCERPT REPRINT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: 1898: P. 448: FROM: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: LONDON: 1889
7. PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES AND BRITISH COLONIES: IN: THE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL OF ANTHONYS PHOTOGRAPHIC BULLETIN: ILIFFE & SON: LONDON: VOLUME II: 1889: P. 478
8. P.H. EMERSON-THE FIGHT FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FINE ART: NANCY NEWHALL: AN APERTURE MONOGRAPH: NEW YORK: 1975: P.83
9. EXCERPT REPRINT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: 1898: P. 448: FROM: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: LONDON: 1889
10. ENGLISH NOTES: TALBOT ARCHER: IN: ANTHONY’S PHOTOGRAPHIC BULLETIN: E.& H.T. ANTHONY & CO.: NEW YORK: MAY 24, 1890: P. 299
11. INTRODUCTION: IN: THE TOWER OF LONDON: LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER, F.S.A.: GEORGE BELL & SONS: LONDON: VOL. 1,1901: XI
12. COLOPHON: THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER: PUBLISHED BY DOUGLAS CLEVERDON:  FANFARE PRESS: BRISTOL: 1929

The Story:  1871-1915

 © 2012 by David Spencer- PhotoSeed owner|curator

Like many business ventures in the United States, the idea for a new photographic publication that would eventually become known as The Photographic Times came about during a working lunch. One attended in 1869 by men associated with the Scovill Manufacturing Company of New York City. (1.)

Wish to skip this?- Check a timeline post with photos:  March of Trade’s Harmonious Shades

At the time, Washington Irving Adams, (1832-1896) who joined the Scovill company in 1858 and was its manager in charge of the photographic department, part of the first American manufacturer that made the silver-plated sheets of copper used for Daguerreotypes beginning in 1842, (2.) made the suggestion for a new trade monthly that would eventually grow into becoming America’s most important and widely-circulated photographic journal, one that appeared under its’ own name from 1871-1915. Besides being a thorough documentation of all aspects of the state of photography as practiced commercially and by the majority of their amateur readership during this period, this quintessential of all American photographic journals is extremely valuable for the art historical record it presented from 1889-1904 in the form of hand-pulled, photogravure plates and collotypes, some of which have been compiled here on the PhotoSeed website. Showcasing the high ideals of photographic art for their day, these plates both represent some of the finest work cast off in history’s dustbin as well as examples by acknowledged masters of the lens whose work is continually studied and displayed on museum walls today.

In late 1893, after The Photographic Times had been published for over 20 years, a recounting of the history of the publication appeared in its pages. The promotional article is valuable for the time it was written in relation to the progress of photographic history, and I have endeavored here to fill in details and high-points that occurred throughout the entire life of the journal, as well as an overview of the progress of the Scovill company which published it, giving context of its’ importance to modern readers. Back then, the Times was described as follows:  

It was at first merely a little eight-page monthly, designed, as its “Apology” stated, to “set the photographer commercially right.” It was then virtually edited by Mr. Adams, who supplied all the material for the trade notes, and directed its policy, though Dr. E.L. Wilson furnished most of the literary matter and superintended the printing. (3.)

Philadelphia Connection

Dr. Edward L. Wilson, (1838-1903) founder, editor, and publisher of The Philadelphia Photographer, a journal he began in 1864 near the end of the American Civil War, had up to that point set the standard for a monthly independent journal of photography, with Adams and the Scovill Company fashioning the Times after it and initially issuing it free as a supplement to the Philadelphia Photographer in 1870 as way to further market and capitalize on its growing line of manufactured photographic products. It was also in step with Wilson’s ideals when it stated in the first January, 1871 issue that it was on a mission to break the cycle of collusion which had permeated the photographic establishment for decades- one that had stifled progress in photography in the United States whenever a new photographic process was discovered by someone intent on making money. In their New Year’s greetings to readers, the Times wrote:

A few years ago we could not do this thing heartily. Then it used to be like this: Judas Brown of Cincinnati, or may be New York, would by some hook or crook blunder into a discovery of some nature or other in his manipulations, that aided him in his work. Excited over it, he would close his gallery, or place it under the care of his help, and forthwith go about the country and tell of his good fortune. But would he give it to you, or to us, or to any of our friends? Not he. If you chanced to ask him for it, he would extend his hand towards you, the back of it downwards, stiffen out his thumb, and then rub the index finger against it back and forth in a manner very peculiar, but very similar to that of testing the quality of a piece of cloth or the coarseness of a sample of snuff. You know what it means. We need not explain. Happily that thing is almost ended. Photographers read live, elevating journals now, and they have such to read. They also attend conventions and exhibitions; and such things are supported by them. They are becoming enlightened, and have things to enlighten them. They are throwing aside all their old prejudices, and understand that the members of their craft are human beings, and so do the public understand this. (4.)

The business relationship between Wilson’s Philadelphia Photographer, published by Benerman & Wilson in Philadelphia and the Scovill company in New York was further highlighted with the purpose of showing the new publication as indispensable. This is born out in the following query by a Canadian photographer reprinted in the same issue:

Gentlemen: I am a subscriber to the Philadelphia Photographer, and as such am greatly obliged to you for sending me, as well as to the fraternity at large, your invaluable Times. But, unfortunately, I have never been favored with the first two (January and February) numbers.
Now, as it is my intention to have the Times neatly and richly bound, before New Year, I would be greatly obliged to you if you could spare those two numbers, and send them down to me, with the cost of them; for in the Times I find not only “Little Grains of Silver,” but large drops of gold.

Truly, yours obliged,
L. A. Derome, Photographer.

P. S. As soon as I get your bill for the two numbers I shall send you the cash. Please don’t forget my request.      L. A. D.

And the following response, with the point of confirming the new publication’s free status to its readers appeared right after:

We desire that Mr. Derome should understand that we make no charge for the Times. We are glad to send it to any photographer who will receive it and pay the postage. The readers of the Philadelphia Photographer and Photographic World need not even pay that much for it, as, through Messrs. Benerman & Wilson, gentlemen who always, as is well known, stand ready to aid in any good way of informing their readers, we are enabled to present the Times to all of their readers free of charge.
The Times for 1872 we hope to make just what we agreed it should be, and worth reading from one end to the other, entire. (5.)

More early details concerning circulation of the new publication emerge in the aforementioned 1893 history of the Times:

It was sent out with Doctor Wilson’s Philadelphia Photographer, The Photographic World, and Walzl’s Photographic Magazine, in addition to the 500 copies which were mailed each month from the office of The Scovill Manufacturing Company, then at number four Beekman Street, New York. The Photographic Times therefore, in its first number, secured a circulation greater than any other photographic periodical of its time, for it sent out, in addition to the copies which went with the three publications acknowledged to have the largest circulation of their time, 500 additional copies, as stated. This position, secured with its first number, the magazine has never abandoned, and it is to-day, as it was then, the most extensively circulated photographic periodical in America. The first edition of the present number is 5,000 copies. This represents an actual circulation much larger, of course, than that figure indicates; probably at least three or four times that amount, as usually estimated and claimed by publishers. (6.)

Behind & Ahead of the Times: Washington Irving Adams

Born in New York City on March 25, 1832, Washington Irving Adams, the force behind the founding of the Times, was a  descendant of Henry Adams of Braintree, Mass: “from whom the Adams’s of Presidential fame were likewise descended.” (7.) At 25 or 26 years of age, in 1858, Adams went to work for the Scovill company, which had first opened a branch office in 1846 (8.) at 57 Maiden Lane in New York City. An 1857 advertisement for the firm in Trow’s commercial New York directory stated:

Manufacturers and Importers of Daguerreotype Plates, Cases, Mattings, Preservers, Cameras, Plate Glass, and every variety of goods adapted to the Daguerreotype, Photographic, and Glass processes.  (9.)

By all accounts, Adams was industrious at Scovill, and “worked as a general helper, entry clerk, salesman, stockholder and manager of the photographic department.” (10.)  Certainly, he was ambitious, his drive eventually leading him to become President, Treasurer and half namesake of the newly formed Scovill & Adams company in 1889:

Under his able management the business of the company has grown, until the Scovill and Adams Company has become the largest and most influential manufacturing firm of photographic apparatus in the world.  (11.)

By 1859, Scovill had established two new stores in the city, both on the ground floor of the newly-built Potter, or World newspaper Building at 36 Park Row and 4 Beekman Street, (12.) the latter being listed as home base for The Photographic Times when it was first published under the Scovill imprint in 1871.

1871: Delicate Half-Tones & Harmonious Shades

In the first issue of the Times dated January, 1871, readers were confronted with a bit of reverse psychology in the form of a signed proclamation titled “Our Apology.” In it, the Scovill Manufacturing Company stated they made no apologies in describing the underlying commercial nature of their mission for the new publication:  

The reading photographer-and what live, enterprising photographer is not a reading one-is so well supplied now with literature, that some apology is due him for the advent of The Photographic Times. It is not to inveigle him into our domains exclusively, but rather to aid him in his efforts to reach higher and to excel in his profession.
One great essential to success is to use good materials and good tools to work with.
The isolated photographer is so bewildered by the multitudinous circulars that he receives, oftentimes from irresponsible parties, that he cannot tell which is best to buy. The Times will take it upon itself to set him commercially right.

This, then, is our apology; and we begin our work cheerfully, hopefully, and at once.
The Scovill Manufacturing Company does not, by a long way, devote its whole energies to the manufacture and sale of photographic requisites. It is the great American headquarters for all sorts of notions, such as buttons, brass goods, plated ware, and so on; yet the Photographic Department alone is larger than any one other stock depot in the whole world.
Everything that the trade can possibly demand is supplied of the best quality; and to inform you as to which their goods are, and where to get them, to caution you against the spurious and bad, and to excite your preference for better grades of goods, will be the ostensible purpose of the Times.

Continue to buy your goods of your favorite dealer, but have a care to ask for those advertised herein. And while the purpose stated will be our great high light, we shall intersperse here and there delicate half-tones and harmonious shades from sources of information which shall do you good service in your manipulations, and add to your store of useful knowledge. We have engaged talent for this end, which is competent and able to instruct.
With this apology, we beg you to consult carefully the pages that follow, and ask that the monthly visits of the Times be welcomed by you as freely as they come to you. Truly yours,
Scovill Manufacturing Co., New York  (13.)

1874: Moving on up to SoHo

By January of 1874, the Scovill Company had grown to the point where they needed much larger warehouse and sale facilities to house their chief enterprise as a merchant of brass goods and photographic supplies as well as offices for their new publishing venture The Photographic Times.  Vacating their offices in The World newspaper building across from Park Row, the Scovill company relocated over a mile uptown, to a newly built, five-story, cast-iron Italianate store and loft building designed in 1873 by Griffith Thomas for owner Henry J. Newman. The Scovill company leased the new space from Newman at a time when the SoHo area: was experiencing a rapid transformation from a residential neighborhood to a commercial district  as New York City  established itself as the commercial and financial center of the country.  (14.)

A notice that month in the Times declared of their new headquarters, now  at 419-421 Broome Street:

If our readers discover any shortcomings in the Times this month, it is owing to the fact that it was prepared during the hurry and confusion incident upon the removal of our stock to our new establishment, No. 419 and 421 Broome Street, near Broadway.
Want of room and the march of trade to the upper portion of the city, have compelled us to vacate our old quarters, where we have been so many years, and where we have grown and advanced with the growth and advance of photography. But we have no regrets on the subject. We are going to more convenient and much more elegant and spacious quarters, and before the 15th proximo we hope to be in full operation there. After we are settled and fixed we shall have more to say on the subject. We shall not say more now, lest we say too much—for we do not know ourselves how we shall look until we are fixed—except that pending our next issue, we invite you one and all to come and see us, and the finest display of photographic goods in the whole world.
☞Nos. 419 and 421 Broome Street.  (15.)

Later in March, more details about the new offices were supplied to Times readers:

The above we want photographers everywhere to remember is now the headquarters of the Scovill Manufacturing Company, and we intend to make it the headquarters of the photographic fraternity as well. Things are assuming form and place, and order is coming out of chaos. We believe our business has not suffered during the transition period, and we are happy to promise well for the future. With unrivaled facilities for displaying goods, and a department for each of the various kinds, we expect the advantages to those who buy as well as to us who sell will be such as to render frequent the visits of all our old friends, and bring us besides hosts of new ones.
As we become more and more familiar with our new quarters, and approach nearer to a settled condition, we cannot resist the feeling that we would like all our friends to come and see us; and we hereby invite one and all to make us a visit whenever they find it convenient.
We intend soon to give a more extended description with full details. In the meantime we may be found at 419 and 421 Broome Street.  (16.)

From 1871-1874, the Times was a free monthly publication, being issued along with The Philadelphia Photographer. Others could receive it for ¢.50 a year-the cost of postage. By 1872, the publication had increased in size from 8 to 16 pages, which included advertisements. In 1875, the Times had gained a larger readership and increased to 24 pages. Still sent out free along with the Philadelphia Photographer, other subscribers could receive it for $1.00 a year- the increased price for postage:

We give it to all the readers of the Philadelphia Photographer free, and to those who subscribe outside, the price hereafter will be $1 per annum, which includes postage. We are sure that no more literature for a dollar can be had in the world than this. Watch the Times.  (17.)

1880:  Decade of Progress

An update on the progress of the Times ten years out was included with several articles in the January, 1880 issue. Several excerpts:

The Times has now become an influential leader in our art, and grows annually more popular. Our German and French translations are especially selected with care and judgment by our own staff, and such as are given by no other magazines.
The Times will hereafter supply all the home and foreign photographic news of any real service to American photographers, and you should carefully read it. It contains twenty-four pages of useful matter, and we shall endeavor to make it better and better, and more useful each month, and thus keep you all up with the times.
Subscription price, $1 per annum, postage paid, including one copy Photographic Mosaics for 1880 as a premium.
By arrangement with Mr. Edward L. Wilson, the Photographic Times regularly forms a part of the Philadelphia Photographer each month. It has also a long list of independent subscribers, and it is now a conceded fact that its circulation is much larger than that of any photographic journal in the country, thus making the advantages to advertisers very apparent.  (18.)

And on the following page:

The Photographic Times, we need scarcely state, is a semi-commercial journal, and we particularly desire it to be understood that while this role will still be maintained, and special notices of all our own novelties or manufactures will be given as before, all novelties in manufactures, apparatus, or appliances which inventors or agents may deem worthy of being brought before the public, and which shall be sent to us for that purpose, shall receive a full and fair descriptive and critical notice.
Books, photographs, or artistic works will also be received for review, and shall be noticed in the promptest manner.
We embrace this opportunity of requesting our numerous friends in the various operative departments of galleries, to favor us with letters or notes (no matter how brief) for publication, describing anything unusual or of interest to brother photographers which they may meet with in course of their practice. As “iron sharpeneth iron,” so does the description of a difficulty successfully overcome, or even not overcame, elicit from others interesting and often valuable information concerning the same or similar difficulties.  (19.)

It eventually broke free of the Philadelphia Photographer and was sent out independently. The 1893 History of the Times recounting these years states:

The little monthly grew rapidly in popularity and influence. From being sent out at first gratis, its subscription price was made 50 cents per annum, and later $1.00. It was soon sent out independently of the other photographic publications, though Doctor Wilson continued to give editorial attention to its make-up until 1881, when Mr. J. Traill Taylor, formerly editor of The British Journal of Photography, was engaged to edit The Photographic Times, with the assistance of many well-known American photographic writers. Its subscription price was increased to $2.00 and very son the publishers had on their books more names at that rate than they had previously had at $1.00.  (20.)

 1881: Taylor takes the Helm

Beginning in 1881, the experienced John Traill Taylor, (1827-1895) whose previous editorship of the high-circulation British Journal, brought new ideas to the Times. One of them may have been to include the new masthead imprint of the American Photographer to the journal-most likely a further way to “brand” it to a larger potential audience along with The Photographic Times. (21.) A lengthy publishers announcement greeted readers in the January issue, which indicated Taylor’s new mission and more independent direction for it, and one that professed a more arms-length relationship to photographic commerce:

It has often been alleged by photographers throughout the United States that it is a disgrace to our boasted state of advancement that there is not in New York an independent photographic journal of a practical and scientific character, and removed from the trammels of trade.
After due consideration we have resolved upon supplying the want thus indicated, and have decided upon reconstructing the Photographic Times and launching it into the new channel indicated, as a practical, scientific, live journal of photographic progress, a reflex of the times in which we live, a record of what is transpiring among us.
To this end we have secured the services of the ablest scientific, literary, and operative talent possible, so as to insure for our journal in its reconstructed form the position of being inferior to no other photographic publication in the world.
The Photographic Times And American Photographer will be issued on the 15th of each month, under the able editorship of J. Traill Taylor, so well and favorably known everywhere as having been for fifteen years editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Photography, then the leading photographic journal in the world. The mere mention of the name of this gentleman as editor relieves the publishers of the necessity of saying a word as to the able and energetic way in which the editorial duties will be performed.  (22.)

1884: Another move next Door  

1884 was the next important milestone for the Scovill company and the Photographic Times.  By May of that year, the firm had moved into their brand-new, Queen Anne style, brick and terra-cotta seven-floor store and loft building which had been constructed next door to their offices at 419-421 Broome street at #423. Designed by the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine, the new building was described in the July issue by Washington Irving Adams:

On the first day of May, 1884, we completed the removal of our stock of merchandise to our
NEW WAREHOUSE,
No. 423 Broome Street.
This well appointed structure, embracing seven floors and a double basement, we have erected to meet the special requirements of our business. The building, with its improved interior arrangements, will greatly enlarge our facilities and enable us to respond to the wants of our patrons in a more expeditious and satisfactory manner than heretofore. For the accommodation of our friends, a well-constructed dark-room and sky-light have been added to the many other conveniences introduced, all of which will subserve in various ways the interests of our customers.
Thanking you for past favors, and soliciting your continued patronage, we are
Very truly yours,

SCOVILL MFG. CO.
W. Irving Adams, Agent  (23.)

In the fall of 1884 other major changes came to the journal. It changed from a monthly to a weekly, and W.I. Adam’s son Lincoln Adams joined the staff in 1885:  

In the fall of 1884 the magazine  became a weekly, with the subscription price $3 per year, though a monthly edition was continued as theretofore at $2 per annum. With the beginning of the next year (1885) the weekly Photographic Times enlarged its pages to large quarto; and W.J. Stillman and Charles Ehrmann became regularly associated with Mr. Taylor in the editorial conduct of the magazine, and Mr. W.I. Lincoln Adams was added to the staff as an assistant editor.  (24.)

1886-1889: The Chautauqua School of Photography & Photographic Times Publishing Association are Born

By the fall of 1886,  Lincoln Adams had succeeded J. Traill Taylor as managing editor.  At the time, the Times was a 12-page weekly and cost $3.00 for a yearly subscription. The editorial flavor was enhanced by a new stable of authors from England and Europe as well. From England, some of the new contributors included Henry Peach Robinson, W. Jerome Harrison, Andrew Pringle and F.C. Lambert. From Europe, Dr. Josef Maria Eder, Henry Wilhelm Vogel, Carl Srna, and Dr. Federico Mallman. New American contributors included the voices of photographers J.M. Mora, John Carbutt, J.R. Swain, Rev. Clarence E. Woodman, George R. Sinclair and Frederic Beach.

A brand new venture that would play a larger future role in the pages of the journal was born the same year in the form of photographic instruction. Dr. Charles Ehrmann, a regular contributor since 1881 who took on a broader editorial role under Taylor, was named instructor in the fall of 1886 for the newly established Chautauqua University School of Photography. Conveniently, the Times took on the role as the school’s “authorized organ”, with Ehrmann in charge.  In the 1893 History of the Times it was stated:

Since then, our magazine has maintained a regular department devoted to the Chautauqua School of Photography, and has found it a popular feature of the paper with all its readers. The School has grown in numbers, until it is now probably the largest School of Photography in the world.  (25.)

1887 was the first year for a new publishing venture associated with the Times, an annual called “The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac” whose first edition numbered 3000 copies. By 1894, the first edition had increased to a remarkable 20,200 copies, with over 16,000 sold on December 1, the first day of publication.  (26.)

In 1889, the Times came for the first time under the umbrella of the newly formed Photographic Times Publishing Association, which grew out of Scovill’s Photographic Department as part of that year’s newly incorporated Scovill & Adams Company, with Washington Irving Adams named president. As a result, the Times was now sub-titled as declared in the 1893 History:

“a thoroughly independent periodical devoted exclusively to “the art, science and advancement of photography”.

Ambitious changes were also instituted, especially as a showcase for its photographic plates, one of the remarkable legacies of this publication. The 1893 History continues:

The PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES had frequently brought out full-page pictorial illustrations, in addition to the cuts and diagrams which always brightened its reading columns; but beginning with 1889, it presented its readers regularly, each week, with a full-page pictorial frontispiece, reproduced by photogravure or other high grade process, and including an occasional photographic print on albumen or other sensitive paper. It thus became the first and continues to be the only photographic weekly publication in the world, containing a full-page picture with every issue. Its Convention, Holiday, and other special numbers often contained double and triple the amount of reading matter of an ordinary issue, and several full-page pictures. With the beginning of the 1889 the subscription price was made $5.00.  (27.)

Furthermore, the editors stated:

The paper attains, in its present number, a higher standard of excellence, both from its mechanical, artistic and literary standpoints, than has ever before been approached even by any photographic periodical in the world.  (28.)

In the summer of 1893, the weekly Times increased the editorial content to 16 pages from 12. Earlier that spring, Walter Edward Woodbury, (1865-1905) a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and son of Englishman Walter Bentley Woodbury- (1834-1885) whose namesake had been the invention of the woodburytype photographic process- joined the editorial staff. By late 1894, he had become editor of the magazine. (29.)

1895: A High-Class Art Periodical

With Woodbury’s leadership, more radical changes took place. In the issue for December 21, 1894, the news the Times would soon become a monthly in 1895 and position itself as a “high-class art magazine” was spelled out to readers as part of An Important Announcement:

When our periodical became a weekly with sixteen pages of reading matter, a full-page frontispiece illustration, and numerous photoengraved pictures throughout the letterpress, it was thought that our magazine had attained its zenith. But there is still a greater step forward, which we have contemplated during the past year, and which we are now prepared to make; and that is, to concentrate the energy and money expended in publishing a journal each week in bringing out a high-class monthly magazine, quadrupled in reading pages and with more than four times the number of pictures, while the advertising pages are reduced to less than one-half that number; so that, in a word, by this change, our weekly periodical with one picture and a limited number of reading pages develops into a high-class art magazine many times more attractive and valuable to the reader than a weekly could possibly be and in a more convenient form.  (30.)

1896: Another new home & passing of  W. I. Adams

The popularity of the Times was of course tied to the financial success of the Scovill & Adams company, and with it, the decision to move uptown yet again, 15 blocks north into a brand-new building on East 11th street-one still standing today. Although it is a bit unclear if the move took place in 1896 or 1897 due to the misplaced word “next”, it is believed the firm took occupancy of the new building in early 1896. The following description was duly reported in the January, 1896 issue:

The New Home of The Scovill & Adams Co. of New York—About the 1st of January next the Scovill & Adams Company of New York will remove to their new home at 60 and 62 East Eleventh Street, a magnificent seven-story and basement building, a few doors from Broadway.
It is of extra heavy construction, 42 feet front by 95 feet deep. The front is of granite, terra cotta and brick, and the entrance portico is very spacious. The cut shown on this page gives a good idea of the appearance of this handsome building. The main hallway is large, easy of access, and leads to two of the latest improved, fast running freight and passenger elevators. The building is furnished with complete and improved steam-heating plant, and equipped with all modern improvements. The lofts have light on four sides, and the inside finish of the building is of hardwood cabinet finish.
The executive offices and salesrooms will be on the ground floor, while a spacious and well-lighted basement will be reserved for receiving and distributing goods, packing, and for the storage of the heavier merchandise. A fire-proof vault under the sidewalk will contain all chemicals of an explosive nature. The lofts will be reserved for the storage of original cases and other unpacked goods.
A specially constructed dark-room for the use of their patrons and friends will be conveniently situated, and on the roof of the building there will be a commodious skylight, with light facing north, for experimental and testing purposes.
Their stock will, of course, be very complete, embracing every requisite of the photographer, whether he be professional or amateur. They state that they will keep a full line of all makes of apparatus, all brands of dry plates, the various brands of printing-out and other sensitive papers, chemicals, accessories, etc., etc. In short, they propose to be in readiness, at all times, to supply patrons with anything photographic which they may require, and in any quantity.
They extend to all photographers, professional and amateur, a cordial invitation to visit them in their new home, whether they are in need of any photographic article or not.
Our New Offices will be in the same building. The editorial rooms and offices will be situated on the main floor of the building. A very complete photographic and reference library will be conveniently arranged in the editorial rooms, and on the roof will be erected a finely fitted up dark-room and skylight gallery. These will be at the disposal of all our subscribers and friends.  (31.)

 By February, the date for move in had been officially moved to January 15th, 1896 as reported in this republished excerpt in the Times by The Mercantile and Financial Times:

There is hardly any line of business that can be mentioned as being represented in this city at the present day but what is affected to a less or greater extent by what is called “the uptown march of trade.” Retail houses form, as it were, the advance line to the North, and behind them come the wholesale, manufacturing and importing concerns of every class. Where the frontier will be in twenty years from now no human being can foresee.
A most notable illustration of this tendency of the times is to be found in the removal of the old and famous Scovill & Adams Company of New York, from their old headquarters at 423 Broome Street, to their own new seven-story and basement building at Nos. 60 and 62 East Eleventh Street, five doors from Broadway. The formal date of the change was set for January 1, 1896, but as a matter of fact the company will not move in until about January 15th. They will then have the largest, finest and most complete establishment in the United States devoted to the handling of what may be designated as the pharaphernalia (sic) of photography—the fit home for the oldest and largest concern in the United States in its line.  (32.)

1896 would be a sorrowful one for the Times and the Scovill & Adams Company. In February, the death on January 2 of Washington Irving Adams was announced and with it, the man who had inspired the very existence of the Photographic Times. Additional details of his remarkable life as well as his complete obituary as printed in the Times can be seen through this site at the following link.

The new Editor: Walter E. Woodbury

Like J. Traill Taylor before him, Times editor Walter E. Woodbury was also on a mission. He wasted little time in transforming the journal into a “high-class art magazine”.  Now published on the 15th of each month beginning in 1895, the magazine featured a dramatic new cover designed by English bookplate artist George Richard Quested. Gone was the simple and uninspiring former cover credited to Brooklyn artist William Mozart which merely showcased the title within a simple frame and in was Quested’s distinctive wood engraving of the Roman goddess Veritas holding out her lamp symbolically lighting the way for truth. Smaller portrait medallions of Science, represented by a bearded gentleman and Art, by a fair maiden crowned by laurels, complimented the new look,  printed in bold red ink.  A newly enforced arsenal of writers-many being distinguished photographers in their own right, were soon featured in the pages as well. Surviving Times letterhead from 1896 as well as advertisement copy that year in the exhibition program of the fourth English (Linked Ring) Photographic Salon– “Articles By All The Best Writers“-gave proper notice. Some of the more prominent authors included Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Horsley Hinton, and Henry Peach Robinson from England and in America-Alfred Stieglitz, Dr. John Nicol, Rudolph Eickemeyer Jr. and John Carbutt. In all, 41 contributors to the journal, but not all, were listed on the letterhead.

The second component, and perhaps most important legacy in terms of a historical document surviving today, was the new push by Woodbury to feature cutting edge artistic photography within the pages of the Times. Coming after the commitment by management of reproducing a hand-pulled photogravure (sometimes a collotype) as a frontispiece in each monthly issue, the quality of these plates improved on Woodbury’s watch as well. For ten years, beginning in 1895 and lasting until the end of 1904, (33.) when gravures were no longer reproduced, Pictorialism as practiced by leading lights included plates in gravure by  Stieglitz, Eickemeyer, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Charles Berg, Alfred Clements, William Fraser, John Dumont, Robert Demachy, James Breese, Joseph Keiley, and Zaida Ben-Yúsuf -to name only a few.

The previously mentioned Times 1896 Linked Ring program advertisement brought specific attention to this legacy, emphasizing in large type:  ..EACH ISSUE.. CONTAINS A MAGNIFICENT Photogravure Frontispiece.  It also pointed out that from:

50 to 100 Photographic Reproductions Including the works of , and then a hash list of some of these aforementioned photographers were included in each issue.   Finally, the following notice reprinted from the English journal Photography from April 30, 1896 appeared within the advertisement:

The Photographic Times is the brightest and best illustrated of any of the photographic magazines which reach us from across the water, and leaves nothing to be desired in the way of printing and get up. There is only one English illustrated monthly which is of the same price-the Pall Mall Magazine-and though that is lavishly illustrated, the photographic journal, pictorially, holds its own.

Woodbury’s tenure as editor lasted through 1899, when he left for unknown reasons. However, along with so-called “radical” changes (34.) planned for 1901, he returned as editor that year to a much smaller journal with the reduced annual subscription price of $2.00 a year:

 As announced elsewhere, we shall make several important changes and improvements in this magazine. The numerous complaints we have received of the unwieldiness of the publication and the manner in which it was damaged during transmission through the mails has induced us to reduce its size to regular magazine dimensions. While the size will be reduced the number of pages will be the same, although the number of these will be increased provided we receive your support and assistance. This you can easily do by recommending The Photographic Times to those of your friends interested in photography. Perhaps to the subscriber, however, the most important change is in the reduction in price from four dollars to two, thus placing a high-class, artistic magazine within the reach of all.  (35.)

Kodak’s Reach & Impact

Some of these radical changes were affecting the firm itself. By the fall of 1900, the Scovill & Adams company was on the move again, this time another eight blocks uptown to 142 Fifth Ave.:

NEW HOME AND ENLARGED HEADQUARTERS FOR THE OLDEST PHOTOGRAPHIC HOUSE IN AMERICA.

The Scovill & Adams Co. of New York, have moved their executive offices, salesrooms, and warehouse to the large twelve story building at Fifth Avenue, corner of 19th Street. The Fifth Avenue number of the building is 142, and the entrance to the executive offices of the Scovill & Adams Co. of New York, is No. 3 and 5 West 19th Street.
The business will be divided in Sectional Department, Wholesale Department, Publication Department, and Sample Room. The last will be a feature that will appeal to out-of-town buyers, who have a limited time to spend in New York and must necessarily inspect, in a short time, everything that is new in the photographic line.  (36.)

But the most radical changes were impacting the photographic industry itself, and in turn, photographic publishing as well. At the turn of the 20th century, the Eastman Kodak Company, based in Rochester, New York, was becoming monopolistic in how they selectively purchased companies. In February, 1900, the Times reprinted a notice: “Facts About the Combine” which had appeared in the Christmas issue of the Boston Herald newspaper two months earlier:

The photographic world is, as a matter of fact, in a state of considerable excitement. It has witnessed the gradual growth of the kodak business under the management of George Eastman, during the past decade, with pride mingled with some apprehension, as one corporation after another was absorbed under Mr. Eastman’s personal control. Last summer the principal photographic paper manufacturers were combined in a photographic paper trust, in which it was known that Mr. Eastman had a large, if not a controlling, interest. It was therefore natural for the trade to assume, when the recent camera trust was formed in Rochester, that Mr. Eastman was also at the bottom of that combination as well.

The subject of this so called camera trust-although debunked at the time in the pages of the Times as being the work of George Eastman,  gave the push and reason enough for the Scovill & Adams company under president W. I. Lincoln Adams to be combined itself in late December, 1901 with the E. & H.T. Anthony & Co.  In an about-face reflecting the new reality the Scovill company found itself in- as an island left out of the new Rochester camera trust- (along with several other large plate camera manufacturers)- Adams reply to the Boston Herald in the pages of the Times of February 1900 is especially ironic:

As a matter of fact,” he said, “I am opposed to trusts and combinations. I do not think that any one is benefitted by them, as a rule, except the promoters.

A virtuous defender of his companies legacy perhaps, or simply naive, Adams was a man of character to the end of the article discussing the effects of the march of the Kodak brand:

 “Were you invited to join the camera trust?” Mr. Adams was asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “but we declined to put a price on our business. We do not want to sell out or go out of business. We have been identified with photography since the days of the daguerreotype, in the forties, and,” he added, smiling,”we expect to remain in it a few years longer.”  (37.)

 The Photographic Times-Bulletin: 1902-1904

Woodbury’s rejoining as head editor of the Times in 1901 lasted until April of 1902, when the new combine of the Anthony & Scovill companies-which became known as ANSCO– gave birth in turn to a combined publication renamed The Photographic Times-Bulletin-a joining of the Photographic Times and Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin. The editorial offices of the journal, now under control of the Photographic Times-Bulletin Publishing Association, moved yet again, one block south to the new Anthony & Scovill offices at 122-124 Fifth Ave. Beginning with the May issue, Woodbury shared co-editorship of the Times-Bulletin with Professor Charles F. Chandler.

For less than two years, the new publication survived, but did not thrive, even though it faithfully presented a photogravure frontispiece with each monthly issue.  By the end of 1902, Woodbury had left, turning up in Panama by 1905 where he was employed editing the English section of the Panama Star and Herald and Inter-Ocean Critic newspaper before his death late that year, succumbing to yellow fever.  

Although in all intents and purposes a continuation of The Photographic Times, with Lincoln Adams holding control behind the scenes over its editorial and business direction, the Times-Bulletin in name ceased to exist by the end of 1904. And once again, another interim relocation for the Photographic Times-Bulletin Publishing Association editorial offices that year took place. Hop-scotch moves, from Fifth Ave. to the building and company of which Adams was president- the journal’s printers Styles & Cash-at 75-77 Eighth Ave., lead to yet another move by December of 1904 to rented quarters at 39 Union Square. In January 1905, the journal was now back to being called The Photographic Times, with The Photographic Times Publishing Association name restored as well. Weighing in about the change in the December, 1904 Times-Bulletin, editors said:

In the interests of brevity and simplicity, it will be observed we have dropped the rather cumbersome title which has characterized our publication since it united with itself Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin, several years ago, and it will henceforth be known, as it was for so many years previously, simply as The Photographic Times.  (38.)

Later, in the January, 1905 Photographic Times, the remade Times was referred to as a new dress:

We wish you a most happy and prosperous New Year. By the way, speaking of new things, how do you like our new dress? We think its pretty nice, thank you, and will use our best endeavors to make the inside keep up to the outside. For nearly a year we have been considering the changes in this publication that have now assumed definite form.
The old name “The Photographic Times Bulletin ” used since the consolidation of the Photographic Times and Anthony’s Bulletin has been discarded in the interest of simplicity and The Photographic Times will henceforth be the title of this publication.
The old Photographic Times was recognized for many years as the leading American photographic publication, and it is our intention to make the new Photographic Times far in advance of the old one in every respect.
At two dollars per year this publication enjoyed a circulation equalled by few class publications, and at the reduced price of one dollar per year and the many new features within, The Photographic Times is bound to have the largest circulation of any photographic magazine in America.  (39.)

A Ten-Cent Magazine

The changes at this time concerned money of course, but progress in the form of cheap photographic halftones flooding the newsstand marketplace were giving rise to many competing publications for the Photographic Times.  A specialized magazine devoted to photography that at its zenith of power and influence (1889-1900) was priced at the significant sum of $5.00 and eventually $4.00 a year was being pushed aside in this new market by what was known in 1905 as the “Ten Cent Magazine” :

This is the age of Pictures, especially of pictures based upon photography in some form or other. Photo-Engraving Processes have revolutionized modern magazine and book illustration, and the most sought after publications now are those which contain the best and greatest number of photographic reproductions.”…”What can be more fitting, therefore, than that The Photographic Times, which has been a leading organ of photography in the English-speaking world for more than a quarter of a century, should amplify and popularize more than it has ever been able to do in the past, its illustrative and pictorial features.  (40.)

Independent of any Cult

Indeed, the task of selling the soon-to-be cheaper version of the journal was already taking place. In the November, 1904 issue of the Times-Bulletin, the following in-house advertisement appeared:

 IT AFFORDS US PLEASURE
To announce that the price of
The Photographic Times For 1905
will be
ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR
____________________________

Also that The Photographic Times will be better than ever.
Forty-eight (“count ‘em”) good solid pages of information
and entertainment each month, and a wealth of illustrations by
THE LEADING PICTORIALISTS
throughout the world :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::::

The reduction in price from Two Dollars means but one
thing; we are determined to be the leading American Photo-
graphic Journal from every standpoint, and to be read by every
photographer, we have made the popular price—One Dollar
EVERYTHING PHOTOGRAPHIC
That is new, timely or entertaining will be fully described
and our readers will be in touch up to the minute ::::
WE HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY
And are absolutely independent of any trade interest, school
or cult, our only obligation being to give you the biggest
possible return for your dollar :: :: :: :: :: :::

Yours for success,
The Photographic Times Publishing Association
☞ NOTE OUR NEW ADDRESS
39 Union Square ::  ::   :: New York, U.S.A.

Just tell them that you saw it in “The Photographic Times-Bulletin.”

1905-1915: Final Decade

By 1905, Charles Chandler had left as editor of the Times-Bulletin and W. I. Lincoln Adams and Spencer Hord assumed all editing duties of the resurrected Photographic Times. With Adams acting as editor until it ceased to be published at the end of 1915, the following chronology of editors joined him by year:

1906: Charles Plump. Hord gone.
1909: Clarence Usher. Plump gone.
1911: Wilson Adams, (b. 1890) joins his father. Usher remains assistant editor.
1912: Wilson Adams named Managing editor. Milton Ford gone. Usher leaves by end of year to become Secretary-Treasurer & Business Manager.
1914:  The American Photographer journal absorbed into the Times.
1915: Ford gone. The Times edited solely by father and son Lincoln & Wilson Adams.

1916: Absorbed into Popular Photography

Beginning with the January, 1916 issue, the Times had been absorbed into Popular Photography, a new journal published in Boston since October, 1912. Edited by Frank Roy Fraprie, W. I. Lincoln Adams was retained as an associate editor, although it is doubtful he had much of a hand with its affairs.  The following Publisher’s Announcement appeared that month:

THE publishers of THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES, with one exception the
oldest independent photographic magazine published in the United
States, and the publishers of POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY, almost the
youngest periodical of this class, have decided that merging the two
publications will result in the production of a magazine which shall be a greater
power for good to all photographic interests than either has been while standing
alone. Therefore, the present issue, for January, 1916, is a continuation of both
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES and POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY. Owing to the lateness
of the date at which the decision to combine interests was reached, the present
number has mainly the form of POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY, but succeeding issues
will endeavor to retain some of the physical features of special interest of THE
PHOTOGRAPHIC  TIMES, as well as of POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY, the intention of the
editors and publishers being to produce a magazine which shall give its readers all
that has been of value in the editorial policy of each of its predecessors.   (41.)

The Father weighs in on the Son

It is perhaps fitting to end this overview of The Photographic Times with commentary appearing in the January, 1916 issue of The Photographic Journal of America, itself a continuation of the Philadelphia Photographer and Wilson’s Photographic Magazine published by the Edward L. Wilson Company, Inc. of New York:

Arrangements have been made by the publishers of Popular Photography and The Photographic Times to merge these two magazines, beginning with the issue of January, 1916, and the combined magazines will appear under the title of Popular Photography. The Photographic Times is the second oldest photographic magazine published in the United States and a “child” of Wilson’s, having been a supplement to our Journal in 1870. The following year it was published separately by the Scovill Manufacturing Co., and has since remained a prominent factor for the amateur. While we are sorry to see the passing of this well-known publication, the combination is expected to produce a magazine which will be useful in the photographic field and it has our best wishes for added success.
The magazine formed by the combination will be published in Boston by the American Photographic Publishing Company, at the subscription price of $1.00 a year.  (42.)

Final Thoughts

It can only be reasoned arguments by this author pointing to factors leading to the demise of the Photographic Times by the end of 1915. Certainly, world events and market realities at the time must have given Washington Irving Lincoln Adams-a gifted and published amateur photographer himself in his younger days- pause and insight enough to fold his cards on this enterprise, even one that had enjoyed a world-wide reputation and 45-year run. (43.) With only a high school education, his birthright, and a hardworking, capable demeanor, he first succeeded his own father in 1894 as president of the Scovill & Adams Company-of which the Times was only a small component. By 1902, his business acumen had been honed further still when this former concern’s combining with the Anthony Company as well as his other responsibilities that year as president of the Styles & Cash printing firm-printers of the Times from the very beginning-were added to his resume. Soon, his energies also became more focused in his own hometown of New Jersey, where he was an organizer of the new Montclair Trust Company, becoming president by 1905. And these are only a few of the professional commitments and interests taking up his time as recounted in a 1918 biography.  (44.)

Finally, with World War I looming overseas (45.) and a hefty settlement paid him for his being a major shareholder of the Ansco Company which finally settled the Goodwin roll film patent infringement suit brought twelve years earlier against the mighty Eastman Kodak in 1914, (46.) Adams most certainly didn’t need the money or headaches to stay in the game of publishing a monthly photographic journal any longer.

Notes:

1. THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: W.I. LINCOLN ADAMS, EDITOR: NEW YORK: DECEMBER 15, 1893: P. 725. : “THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES GREW OUT OF A SUGGESTION MADE BY MR. W. IRVING ADAMS AT LUNCH ONE DAY OVER TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO”…: THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE TIMES UNDER THE SCOVILL IMPRINT APPEARED IN JANUARY, 18712. EXCERPT: JAMES MITCHELL LAMSON SCOVILL: IN: THE HISTORY OF WATERBURY, CONNECTICUT: HENRY BRONSON, M.D.: WATERBURY: BRONSON BROTHERS: 1858: P. 430: THE SCOVILL FIRM TRACES ITS’ ROOTS BACK TO 1802 IN WATERBURY, AND BECAME KNOWN AS SCOVILL & CO. IN 1840, MAKING A NAME FOR THEMSELVES PRINCIPALLY AS A MANUFACTURER OF BRASS BUTTONS.  3. THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: W.I. LINCOLN ADAMS, EDITOR: NEW YORK: DECEMBER 15, 1893: P. 725. THE FIRST ISSUE APPEARED IN JANUARY, 1871. AT THIS TIME, WILSON AND ADAMS WERE FRATERNAL AND BUSINESS COLLEAGUES, WITH BOTH HOLDING MAJOR OFFICE-HOLDING POSITIONS FOR THE NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION: (1868–1880) FORMED “FOR THE PURPOSE OF ELEVATING AND ADVANCING THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY, AND FOR THE PROTECTION AND FURTHERING THE INTERESTS OF THOSE WHO MAKE THEIR LIVING BY IT.”
4. HAPPY NEW YEAR: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: SCOVILL MANUFACTURING CO. : PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1872: P. 1
5. GRATIFYING: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: SCOVILL MANUFACTURING CO. : PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1872: PP. 2-3
6. IBID: THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES
7. OUR FOUNDER GONE: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: FEBRUARY, 1896: PP. 65-66: HENRY ADAMS WAS THE COMMON ANCESTOR OF THE AMERICAN PATRIOT SAMUEL ADAMS AND JOHN ADAMS, THE SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.
8. ANTHONY, THE MAN, THE COMPANY, THE CAMERAS: AN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHIC PIONEER : 140 YEAR HISTORY OF A COMPANY FROM ANTHONY TO ANSCO, TO GAF: WILLIAM & ESTELLE MARDER: PINE RIDGE PUBLISHING: FT. LAUDERDALE: 1982: P. 218. AT THE TIME, SCOVILL WAS KNOWN AS SCOVILL & CO. AND LATER BECAME IN 1850 THE SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
9. IN: WILSON’S NEW-YORK COMMERCIAL REGISTER, TO ACCOMPANY TROW’S NEW YORK CITY DIRECTORY: MAY 1, 1857: NEW YORK: P. 9
10. IN: DOCTORAL DISSERTATION: MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SUBURBAN TOWN AND ITS ARCHITECTURE: SUSAN A. NOWICKI: 2008: P. 258: PLEASE SEE: WILLIAM AND ESTELLE MARDER: “PIONEERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY”: MONTCLAIR PUBLIC LIBRARY: LOCAL HISTORY COLLECTION: 3-4.
11. THE ADAMS FAMILY: IN: HISTORY OF MONTCLAIR TOWNSHIP: HENRY WHITTEMORE: NEW YORK: THE SUBURBAN PUBLISHING COMPNAY: 1894: P. 223
12. NOWICKI: IBID
13. OUR APOLOGY: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: SCOVILL MANUFACTURING CO., PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK: VOL. 1, NO. 1: JANUARY, 1871
14.FROM: SOHO-CAST IRON HISTORIC DISTRICT EXTENSION DESIGNATION REPORT: NEW YORK: MAY 11, 2010
15. REMOVAL: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1874: P. 1
16. NOS. 419 AND 421 BROOME STREET: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: MARCH, 1874
17. EXCERPT: THE TIMES ENLARGED: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1875
18. THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1880: P. 1
19. EXCERPT: ANNOUNCEMENT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1880: P.2
20. EXCERPT: THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: DECEMBER 15, 1893: PP. 725-26
21. ALTHOUGH IT IS DOUBTFUL ANY PUBLICATION PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS THE AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER ACTUALLY EXISTED, SEVERAL REFERENCES ON THE WEB INDICATE IT HAD BEEN ACQUIRED BY THE TIMES IN 1879 OR 1880,  YET THE COMBINED NAME OF “THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER” DID NOT RESURFACE IN PRINT UNTIL THE JAN. 1881 ISSUE. THIS EDITOR’S SPECULATION IS THAT THE NEW “AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER” REFERENCE IN THE TITLE OF THE JOURNAL WAS ACTUALLY A WAY FOR TAYLOR TO SUBTLY BRAND THE TIMES AS A TRULY AMERICAN PUBLICATION IN ORDER TO GAIN A LARGER AUDIENCE.
22. PUBLISHER’S ANNOUNCEMENT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER: SCOVILL MANUFACTURING CO.: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1881: P. 1
23. IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER: NEW YORK: JULY, 1884: P. 397 (THE PUBLICATION COUNTED 55 PAGES OF EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING MATTER BY THIS ISSUE)
24. EXCERPT: THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: DECEMBER 15, 1893: P. 726
25. IBID: P. 727
26. IBID
27. IBID: PP. 727-28
28. IBID: P. 728
29. SEE: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NOVEMBER 30, 1894: P. 358
30. EXCERPT: AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: DECEMBER 21, 1894: P. 393
31. NOTES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1896: P. 59
32. EXCERPT: INTO NEW PREMISES: FROM: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: FEBRUARY, 1896: P. 105
33. FROM 1902-1904, THE TIMES ALONG WITH ANTHONY’S HAD BEEN A COMBINED PUBLICATION KNOWN AS THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES-BULLETIN
34. “BEGINNING WITH THE JANUARY NUMBER, 1901, RADICAL CHANGES WILL BE MADE IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES, PARTICULARS OF WHICH WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER.” FROM: EDITORIAL NOTES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: OCTOBER, 1900: P. 472
35. FROM: EDITORIAL NOTES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: DECEMBER, 1900: P. 568
36. OUR NEW HOME: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: SEPTEMBER, 1900: P. 417
37. EXCERPT: FROM: FACTS ABOUT THE COMBINE: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: FEBRUARY, 1900: P. 94. AS AN EPILOGUE, THE ANSCO COMPANY, OF WHICH THE SCOVILL & ADAMS COMPANY HAD BEEN LATER COMBINED WITH ALONG WITH THE ANTHONY COMPANY IN DECEMBER, 1901, SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED THEIR GOODWIN FILM PATENT IN 1914 FIRST BROUGHT IN 1902 AGAINST THE EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY-EARNING ANSCO AND ADAMS VERY LARGE SUM OF MONEY. SEE: “EASTMAN CO. SETTLES CASE”: IN: THE NEW YORK TIMES: MARCH 27, 1914
38. EXCERPT: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES FOR 1905: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES-BULLETIN: NEW YORK: DECEMBER, 1904: P. 563
39. EXCERPT: EDITORIAL NOTES: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: NEW YORK: JANUARY, 1905: P. 40
40. EXCERPT: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES FOR 1905: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES-BULLETIN: NEW YORK: DECEMBER, 1904: P. 562
41. EXCERPT: PUBLISHER’S ANNOUNCEMENT: IN: POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY: BOSTON: VOL. IV, NO. 4: JANUARY, 1916
42. NOTES AND NEWS: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL OF AMERICA: NEW YORK: EDWARD L. WILSON COMPANY, INC. : VOL. LIII: FEBRUARY, 1916: P. 81
43. IBID: AS STATED, BUT NOT MENTIONED IN, THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES WAS FIRST PUBLISHED AS A SUPPLEMENT WITH EDWARD WILSON’S PHILADELPHIA PHOTOGRAPHER IN 1870 BEFORE IT WAS OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED AS THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES UNDER THE SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY IMPRINT IN NEW YORK STARTING IN JANUARY, 1871. ITS FINAL ISSUE WAS DECEMBER, 1915.
44. PLEASE SEE: BIOGRAPHY: WASHINGTON IRVING LINCOLN ADAMS-MONTCLAIR: IN:  SCANNELL’S NEW JERSEY’S FIRST CITIZENS- 1917-1918: J. J. SCANNELL: EDITOR & PUBLISHER: PATERSON, NEW JERSEY: PP. 6-8
45. IBID: “IN THE SPRING OF 1916 HE WAS ACTIVE IN ORGANIZING THE MONTCLAIR BATTALION OF CITIZEN SOLDIERS…” SADLY, OF HIS FIVE CHILDREN, HIS THIRD BORN, BRIGGS KILBURN ADAMS, AN AVIATOR IN WORLD WAR I AND 1917 HARVARD GRADUATE, DIED IN 1918 OVER FRANCE DURING A BOMBING RUN.
46. PLEASE SEE CITATION #34: THE NEW YORK TIMES: MARCH 27, 1914.

This  collection of 32 mounted gum bichromate photographs showing the beauty of the Hawaiian islands circa 1900-1910 were believed to have been taken by California photographer William Worden, (1868-1946) based on the final known 1904 image by him of a rain-slicked Market Street “Grand illumination” view which celebrated the encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows that year.  More scholarship needs to be done for the Worden attribution, with the following being my original 2012 post for the album.

You can see all of the album photographs here, as well as my post from 2011.

Album Particulars

The majority of the photographs are believed to have been taken in Hawaii, (known as the Hawaiian Territory at the time) although one photograph, the last presented with the album, shows a nighttime view of Market street in San Francisco, California. Based on other surviving photographs from this era, it depicts the Grand illumination of Market which took place in conjunction with the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the United States and Canadian encampment of Independent Order of Odd Fellows which officially took place in that city from September 19-24, 1904. (1.) Another photograph, appropriately printed in a green tint, shows a stand of Redwood trees, probably taken in California. One subtle clue from the album indicates the photographer may have been a member of the U.S. military based in Honolulu between 1900 and 1920.

The curious and intriguing evidence for this is one of the album leaf supports. On it is a mounted photograph showing the famous volcanic tuff cone Diamond Head on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. On the verso is printed:
War Department
| Headquarters Hawaiian Department |
Honolulu, H.T.
| ——————————-
Official Business

Evidently a mailing envelope, a red ink stamp is used to address its recipient, which is unfortunately mostly rubbed out, except for a few details which can still be gleaned:
Commanding Officer |
Th
| Honolulu

In trying to date this envelope, we note the term Hawaiian Department in relation to the U.S. military did not come into general use until February 15, 1913, when it superseded the term Department of Hawaii. 2.
Taking this further, but of course with no evidence he was the album’s photographer, cursory research turns up a listing for the Commanding Officer, Major Thomas J. Smith, who around this time headed up the Hawaii Ordnance Depot for the U.S. Army in Honolulu in 1917. 3.

Other than the tell-tale geologic profile of Diamond Head which can be seen in several landscapes in the album, other identified locations for photographs include Moanalua Park and Sacred Falls on the island of Oahu. The present-day Liliuokalani Park and Gardens on Hawaii Island and Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu-all places existing in the first decade of the 20th century, may be the location for other album photographs. Of course, with the inclusion of the Market street photograph, the well known Japanese tea garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park cannot be ruled out as a possible location as well. Among the carefully composed studies, album photographs show Japanese gardens, an interior study of a tea house, a wooden footbridge, stone lanterns, and large Poinciana tree. Other studies include a rice paddy, taro patch and still life of a vase of Sun-lit flowers.

Surviving examples of Hawaiian artistic photography from the period before World War I or earlier not purely topographical in nature are considered rare. But that is not to say there wasn’t an interest in amateur photography in the Hawaiian Islands at this time. In 1889, the well-known photographer Christian Jacob Hedemann (1852–1932) became president of a group of amateur photographers who founded the Hawaiian Camera Club in Honolulu that year. The Photographic Times reported:

“There are about fifty amateurs in the Hawaiian Islands, which ought to be enough material to make the organization prosperous and useful. The public has an interest in it, as one function assumed by the Camera Club is the holding of exhibitions.” 4.

Later, in 1907, the newly formed Hawaiian Photographic Society was also founded:

“The Hawaiian Photographic Society was formed at Honolulu, H. T., in May, most of the enthusiastic amateurs of that city being present to aid in its formation. A notable work to be undertaken by the society is the securing of photographs of the places of historic interest on the island and placing these in the Hall of Archives as the basis for a photographic survey.” 5.

On a provenance note, the album was purchased in 2011 from a former owner in the Midwestern United States.  Additional insight into this album is welcomed.

NOTES:

1. CALIFORNIA HISTORIAN JOHN T. FREEMAN: EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE WITH PHOTOSEED SITE OWNER ALONG WITH CORROBORATION OF FRONT PAGE ARTICLES AND GRAPHICS FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL NEWSPAPER EDITIONS OF SEPTEMBER 19-20, 1904 AS RETRIEVED VIA THE CALIFORNIA DIGITAL NEWSPAPER COLLECTION: JANUARY, 2012 2. FROM: WAR DEPARTMENT- ANNUAL REPORTS, 1913: WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1914: P. 95 3. FROM: HAWAIIAN ALMANAC AND YEARBOOK FOR 1918: THOMAS G. THRUM: COMPILER AND PUBLISHER: HONOLULU: 1917: P. 169 4. THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER: W.I. ADAMS, EDITOR: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION: NEW YORK: FEBRUARY 8, 1889: P. 74 5. NOTES AND COMMENT: IN: THE PHOTO-MINIATURE: EDITED BY JOHN A. TENNANT: VOLUME 7, APRIL, 1907:  P. 408