By George, Still Relevant: During a reception at the George Eastman Museum for conference attendees, a young George Eastman,(1854-1932) who founded the Eastman Kodak Company, looms larger than life in a photograph taken in 1890 by Nadar. Entrepreneur and Philanthropist are emphasized on the wall label, and with good reason. From the museum’s website:”The George Eastman Museum is located in Rochester, New York, on the estate of George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography and motion picture film. Founded in 1947 as an independent nonprofit institution, it is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. The museum holds unparalleled collections—encompassing several million objects—in the fields of photography, cinema, and photographic and cinematographic technology, and photographically illustrated books. The institution is also a longtime leader in film preservation and photographic conservation.” David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Documentary photography practiced as commerce on busy streets around the world, a genre roughly known as “Movie Snaps” because of the retrofitted movie cameras used in their making, was part of a fascinating presentation under the working title “Street Vendor Portraits Around the World: Czernowitz, Capetown, San Francisco, More!” given by independent scholar Mary Panzar of Rochester. Here, the hybrid look of Winogrand meeting Arbus becomes a document in a projected frame of a woman sporting fur and white gloves at left while a gentleman unaware at right emerges to flash and instant celebrity from a movie theatre on a nighttime street. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Triptych in the Dark: Left: During his presentation “Did Talbot Make Daguerreotypes?”, the eminence of English photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) is shown here by an image most in attendance had seen, yet Grant Romer- formerly of the Eastman House but now Founding Director of the Academy of Archaic Imaging, challenged us with another view: a decidedly unflattering profile of the paper/negative pioneer he rightly remarked might have made for a different public perception for the emerging medium had it been the lone evidence of his existence. Middle: a quote of photographic philosophy by American writer Susan Sontag (1933-2004) struck this observer as particularly relevant in the present day- University of Illinois Springfield professors Kathy Petitte Novak and Brytton Bjorngaard used it as supporting evidence while speaking on “The Blurring Distinctions of Taking versus Making Photographs: Teaching Photography in a Digital Culture”. Right: the appropriated late Victorian era reality of the dark underbelly of a small Wisconsin town through the lens of Black River Falls photographer Charles Van Schaik repurposed by author Michael Lesy in his 1973 cult classic “Wisconsin Death Trip” was supporting material for Nicolette Bromberg of the University of Washington, who argued photographic archivists need to understand context in her paper “Loss of Vision: How Art Historians and Critics Misjudge Early 20th Century Photography and How Early Photographers Along with Art Museums and Archives Help to Obscure the Photographic Record”. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Photographic Preservation: With a mission statement stating they are the “world leader in the development and deployment of sustainable practices for the preservation of images and cultural heritage”, conference attendees toured the Image Permanence Institute, (www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org) which opened in 1985 as an academic research laboratory within the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at RIT. For many visitors, IPI is known for their Graphics Atlas, (www.graphicsatlas.org) an online resource that helps identify photographic and other process print types. In front of a table with various displayed print types including a row of portraits toned with Polysulfide & Selenium Toner, Institute senior research scientist Douglas Nishimura at left chats with a visitor. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Conference participants attended the exhibition “The Luminous Print: An Appreciation of Photogravure” organized by David Pankow, Curator Emeritus for the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT now running through June 15, 2018. With beginnings in intaglio printing by artists working in the late 15th Century, photogravure’s historical timeline which evolved by the 19th Century as a medium for “images from real life” is showcased by superb examples featuring plates from bound volumes, portfolios and individual works. The pleasure in real life can be seconded by this attendee, with the following observation from the catalogue true to form: “enjoy this exhibition for the beauty of its images alone and discover why it has been said that a photogravure print is endowed with a luminosity unequalled by any other process.”David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Royal Visit: As an added bonus, conference attendees viewing “The Luminous Print” could rub shoulders with Massachusetts resident Jon Goodman, a master craftsman who has worked full time since 1976 as a photogravure printer specializing in the Talbot Klic photogravure technique . Beginning in 1980 through the Photogravure Workshop, a division of the Aperture Publishing Foundation and their namesake Aperture magazine and the Paul Strand Foundation, Jon has produced sumptuous, superb, and collectable portfolios of the early work of Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, and British photography. His mission continues today in his Florence, MA atelier along with a new interest: carbon printing. Displayed are six of Jon’s gravure plates featuring the pictorial work of Edward Steichen from the 1981 Aperture portfolio: “Edward Steichen; The Early Years, 1900-1927”. Top to bottom left to right: “Heavy Roses”, “Moonrise, Mamaroneck, New York”, “In Memoriam, New York”, “Steichen and Wife Clara on their Honeymoon, Lake George, New York”, “Three Pears and an Apple, France”, “The Flatiron”. Visit jgoodgravure.com and gravureportfolios.com for more information. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

History of Printing: A series of oil paintings by three artists originally commissioned in 1966 by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation commemorating “Graphic Communications through the Ages” hangs within the offices of the RIT Press ( www.rit.edu/press/ ) and the adjoining Cary Graphic Arts Collection at The Wallace Center. This painting shows a detail of the work “George P. Gordon and the Platen Press” done by American illustrator Robert A. Thom, (1915-1979) with a detail at right by Thom: “Ira Rubel and the Offset Press”. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Making an Impression: Taking center stage for visitors is the famed Kelmscott/Goudy iron hand-press featured among other working presses in the Arthur M. Lowenthal Memorial Pressroom within the Cary Graphics Arts Collection at RIT. Visitors learned it was first owned by the English printer William Morris and then Frederic Goudy, two giants of the letterpress printing art. The press was built in London in 1891 by Hopkinson & Cope- an Improved Albion model (No. 6551). Now featuring around 40,000 fine and rare volumes on graphic communication history and practices, The Cary Collection is considered one of the premier libraries on the subject in the United States. ( library.rit.edu/cary ) David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Alternate History: The coverage by war photographer Robert Capa (1913-1954) for Life Magazine of American troops landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day during World War II was deconstructed after seven decades of public myth to facts by Staten Island, NY independent critic and historian A. D. Coleman. The first photo critic for the New York Times in 1967 and prolific author of books on photography as well as thousands of articles on the medium, Coleman presented his research during the conference titled “Deconstructing Robert Capa’s D-Day: The Unmaking of a Myth” that recently took place over three years helped by the efforts of war photographer J. Ross Baughman, Rob McElroy and Charles Herrick. As a former photojournalist myself for over three decades, I found his presentation convincing and enlightening: I still remember drying strips of film as a young photographer in large upright darkroom cabinets-the focus of some of the research when it was claimed a Life lab tech had melted Capa’s film on deadline- the worst I remember was curled film! Please visit capaddayproject.com to learn more. Malcolm Gladwell, (revisionisthistory.com) are you interested? David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Digital Elephant in Room: Visitors to George Eastman’s stately 50-room Colonial revival mansion adjoining the Eastman Museum will always remember the conservatory, where a fiberglass replica mount of an African bull elephant hangs- a conquest by the company founder during a 1928 Sudanese safari. Conveniently- and speaking of elephants in the room, I earlier had thoroughly enjoyed listening and pondering conference presenter Stephen Fletcher’s talk: “The Photographic Archivist is Dead, Long Live the Photographic Archivist!”, his call to action for the task of photo archivists in the 21st Century: what do we do and how do we preserve a portion for posterity and history the digital evidence of billions and billions of photographs taken-seemingly, every day? A photographic archivist in the North Carolina collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Fletcher’s call to arms would surely have inspired Eastman himself, a hands-on guy who is reported to have overseen every aspect of the construction of his mansion and made sure it contained all the cutting-edge technology of its’ day: from the Eastman Museum website: “Beneath this exterior were modern conveniences such as an electrical generator, an internal telephone system with 21 stations, a built-in vacuum cleaning system, a central clock network, an elevator, and a great pipe organ, which made the home itself an instrument, a center of the city’s rich musical life from 1905 until Eastman’s death in 1932. Eastman was involved in every aspect of the construction, paying close attention to detail and requiring the use of high-quality materials.” David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Smoking also Works: Perhaps the most startling object on display in the mansion-at least to those who do not know the intimate details of George Eastman’s life- is a facsimile of his 1932 suicide note: “To my friends – My work is done – why wait? GE.” Suppressed initially by the Eastman Kodak Company for decades, this news is sobering but important. Eastman had been crippled by a degenerative spinal disease and unable to walk, he shot himself through the heart in his upstairs bedroom. A music lover even after the end, a 1990 New York Times story on the renovation of the mansion noted he “requested a rousing ”Marche Romaine” by Charles Gounod be played at his funeral”. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Fancy Box with Hole in It: Collectors and the curious had the opportunity to peruse the physical evidence of the history of photography during the concluding event of the conference, an antiquarian photography show and sale featuring 80 tables of wares including these vintage wooden box and Kodak cameras. Earlier, the RIT Press and Syracuse University Press showed off their latest offerings, including some wonderful photography volumes during the event. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Learned from Jon Goodman: During the antiquarian photography show and sale, Ontario-based visual artist David Morrish, co-author along with Marlene MacCallum of the 2003 volume “Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process”, shows off a page spread of original photogravures from his 2004 Deadcat Press imprint “Gaze” he was selling along with other work during the antiquarian photography show and sale. Earlier in the conference, Morrish and visual artist MacCallum, former professor in the Visual Arts Program at Memorial University of Newfoundland, presented on “Photogravure: Then and Now” highlighting the gravure process while showing how the medium’s ongoing relevance to contemporary art practice has influenced their own work in the production of print suites and artists’ books. Learn more at marlenemaccallum.com and davidmorrish.com. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Future with a Past: St. Louis resident and commercial photographer Mark Katzman, the key force in proselytizing for the medium and beauty of hand-pulled photogravure worldwide through his website Photogravure.com, speaks with conference speaker Jeff Rosen during the antiquarian photography show and sale. Curious to learn what a real photogravure is, unlike the many who simply use the term-wrongly-to sell you something not what they claim? Head over to his newly redesigned site, where the mission statement is: “Peeling back a layer of the history of photography, this site examines the role that photogravure has played in shaping our shared visual experience. Through exploring thousands of examples, we learn about the relentless and ambitious 19th century pursuit to reproduce photographs in ink and discover the exquisite, sublime process that resulted. It is our hope that this site firmly establishes photogravure as not only one of the most under-recognized photographic processes, but also an important and beautiful art.” David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

Keeper of Memories: Located at 900 East Ave. in Rochester, New York, the George Eastman Museum, along with a section of his original mansion and gardens on 8.5 acres constructed beginning in 1902, is a grand American repository for the study of photography past, present and future. Besides a growing archive of over 400,000 photographic objects spanning the history of the medium, the museum also features 16,000 + examples of photographic and cinematographic technology- the world’s largest. For those interested in the printed legacy, the accessible Richard and Ronay Menschel Library is also onsite, with a special collections and archive division housing “manuscripts, papers, and ephemera, including those of Alvin Langdon Coburn, Lewis W. Hine, Southworth and Hawes, and Edward Steichen, among other photographers, collectors, and inventors.” Curious? eastman.org. David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

A visitor enters the exhibit “Clarence H. White and His World: The Art & Craft of Photography, 1895-1925” at the Princeton University Art Museum during the October, 2017 weekend in which a symposium devoted to Rethinking “Pictorialism” in context with White’s work and those of his contemporaries was discussed. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

Two men from two very distinct photographic worlds: Seen at center ca. 1900 at around 25 years of age, Clarence H. White, with hair slightly unkempt as befitting one whose energies were certainly taxed for familial obligations combined with lofty personal ambitions related to the nascent field of art photography, (and the necessity of keeping his day job) was compared with a mentor at left: Alfred Stieglitz, during a symposium paper. Sarah Greenough, far right, senior curator and head of the department of photographs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., compared both as part of her keynote address: Alfred Stieglitz, 291, and the Nursery of Genius: 100 Years Later. The symposium- Rethinking “Pictorialism” American Art and Photography, 1895 to 1925, was held at Princeton University on October 20-21, 2017 in conjunction with the in-progress exhibition on Clarence White at the University art museum. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

A wall grouping of original Clarence H. White photographs in their original wood frames are on display as part of the exhibit: “Clarence H. White and His World: The Art & Craft of Photography, 1895-1925” now at the Princeton University Museum of Art through early 2018. An excerpt of the wall label: “These photographs are among the few pictorialist works from the late 1890s that survive in their original exhibition frames. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive

A caricature drawing of Clarence White done in 1910 by Mexican artist Marius De Zayas (1880-1961) is included in the exhibit on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accompanied by a vintage portrait of the artist by White at far right, an excerpt from the wall caption reveals: “…de Zayas places White’s hangdog face and porkpie hat beneath the gold moon that symbolized the Photo-Secession. Unlike de Zayas’s more blended, charcoal portraits that Stieglitz exhibited in January 1909, the flat wash areas and sinuous ink contours of this design seem intended for photomechanical reproduction.” Note: caricature drawings by the artist appeared in the journal Camera Work XXIX in 1910 and CW XLVI in 1914. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

Visitors take in a select grouping of vintage photographs taken in 1907 by Clarence H. White and Alfred Stieglitz in White’s New York City studio that are part of the exhibit “Clarence H. White and His World: The art & Craft of Photography, 1895-1925” now at the Princeton University Museum of Art. An excerpt from the wall label: “In 1907 White and Stieglitz collaborated on a series of photographs of two models who posed in varying degrees of undress in White’s studio. The ostensible goal was to test lenses and plates and to demonstrate the potential of “straight photography” to yield artistic portraits and figures. The real inspiration was the availability of a California beauty queen, Mabel Cramer, who arrived in New York in the spring looking for jobs.” Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

In one exhibit gallery, a display case seen at bottom contains examples of Clarence White’s published work. In the early 20th Century, his interest in commercial illustration lent itself to the publication of several articles as well as volumes featuring staged genre photographs, including a photogravure-illustrated edition of the best-selling Irving Bacheller novel Eben Holden published by the Lothrop in 1903 and Songs of All Seasons in 1904. The latter volume, lent by this website for the exhibit and written by White’s uncle Ira Billman contained the following label excerpt: “White provided a bust portrait of Billman as a frontispiece but recycled many older exhibition prints that had only minimal links to the lyrical content of poems celebrating nature, God, and “Plain living and high thinking,” as one was titled.” On another label, for a bound collection of work prints for Eben Holden and the article “Beneath the Wrinkle”, we learn White recruited a bearded gent named John Miles Jones at a Newark, Oh market who served as the “heroic protagonist of Bacheller’s Eben Holden”. (seen at far left at frame bottom) Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

Perhaps Clarence White’s greatest legacy was his teaching career. On the exhibit wall at center, a portrait of the American painter Arthur Wesley Dow taken by White around 1908 is shown with an original painting by Dow at far left showing the influence of Japanese design. White’s transition from Newark to New York City in 1906 began a new chapter of teaching by the photographer, who soon made the acquaintance of artist and arts educator Arthur Wesley Dow, (1857-1922) who hired White as an instructor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1907. White would go on to found his own groundbreaking schools of artistic photography utilizing a modern pedagogy learned from Dow among others: first in Maine beginning in 1910 and then in New York City in 1914. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

In the final gallery exhibition display case, an original letter to Clarence White’s widow Jane White by Alfred Stieglitz is displayed, with this modern-day reader struck by the author’s self importance revealed in the letter’s conclusion at an inopportune time: writing from Lake George, New York, the elder statesman of American pictorial photography pens a belated note of condolence dated September 25, 1923: “My dear Mrs. White: I have refrained from writing to you before this. Life has taught me that words mean little in days like ours. But I want you to know that it did shock me to hear of Clarence’s sudden death-so far away from home. He died in harness. A man can wish no more. Naturally my thoughts of him go back to the “early” days- when I think he was happier- He followed his lights-as I suppose we all do for we seem to have no choice. – I look at Camera Work & am glad it exists. – Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

The exhibit features marvelous images by Clarence White held in the Clarence H. White Collection at the Princeton University Art Museum, like this stunning full-length portrait titled The Sea taken of socialist, feminist and activist Rose Pastor Stokes in 1909 and printed after 1917 as a Palladium print. A committed socialist himself, White photographed Stokes during a visit to her and husband Graham Phelps Stokes (portrait of him at far right of frame by White) summer home on Caritas Island, CT. A label excerpt: “Struck by Rose’s fiery spirit, White conceived this romantic, windswept profile as best embodying her fierce independence and powerful moral convictions.” Note: this portrait used as the cover illustration for the exhibit’s accompanying monograph volume. Photo by David Spencer for PhotoSeed Archive.

“Clarence H. White Autograph”: Black ink, 1916. By his own hand, White autographed a manilla card-stock mount (36.2 x 28.6 cm) featuring a portrait photograph of himself taken by student Ruth Anthony Davis during the Seventh Summer Session of the School of Photography at Stevens Farm in East Canaan, CT that year. Please see portrait below. From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Portrait of Clarence H. White”: Ruth Anthony Davis, American (1880-1979): 1916: vintage platinum print: 24.2 x 19.3 cm | 29.0 x 21.5 cm Japan paper | 36.2 x 28.6 cm manilla card-stock: Davis, an early member of the Providence Camera Club, photographed her instructor Clarence Hudson White while she attended the Seventh Summer Session of the School of Photography at Stevens Farm in East Canaan, CT. A description of the school’s location with emphasis on potential photographic subjects for students appeared in the March, 1916 issue of the International Studio: “The seventh summer session of the Clarence H. White School of Photography will be held at East Canaan, Connecticut, instead of Sequinland, Maine, as heretofore, during July and August. East Canaan is situated in a beautiful valley in the Berkshire Hills of Northern Connecticut, at an elevation of eight hundred feet above the sea level, and is surrounded by hills rising another eight hundred feet above the floor of the valley. The country furnishes abundance of photographic material, comprising, within easy walking distance, farms, rolling uplands, streams, rugged mountains and architecture of typically New England character, many of the buildings dating from Colonial times. Numerous industries, such as iron furnaces, lime kilns, and the like, afford abundant opportunity for pictorial work. The neighbourhood is by no means thickly settled, and those persons who enjoy the seclusion of country life will find it here. Not least among the attractions of this portion of Connecticut are the delightful climate and the practical freedom from mosquitoes.” From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925”: composite gatefold brochure for exhibit at Princeton University Art Museum which runs from October 7, 2017-January 7, 2018. Photographic illustrations by White left and middle: The Sea (Rose Pastor Stokes, Caritas Island, Connecticut) (detail), 1909, printed after 1917. Palladium print. Princeton University Art Museum, Clarence H. White Collection; middle: In the Orchard, Newark, Ohio (detail), 1902, printed after 1917. Palladium print. The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Jane Felix White, 1941. Courtesy: Princeton University Art Museum

Detail: “At the Edge of the Woods Evening”: Clarence H. White, American (1871-1925): Chine-collé photogravure from Camera Notes, Vol. IV, April 1901: 14.4 x 10.1 cm | 28.6 x 19.6 cm uncut: The photographer’s sister-in-law, Letitia Felix is shown at twilight in a wooded setting. Alternately titled as In the Woods; Evening, the photograph was first exhibited in the Third Philadelphia Photographic Salon the same year. (cat.# 202) Later that year, it was exhibited as part of the Newark Camera Club’s exhibition in the town’s Association Building from November 28-December 1, 1900 where it was titled as Edge of the Woods Evening.  The catalogue issued for the exhibit reproduced the photo as the frontis gravure for the publication. From: PhotoSeed Archi

“Experiment 28”: Alfred Stieglitz 1864-1946 & Clarence White 1871-1925, Americans: vintage japanese tissue photogravure published in Camera Work XXVII: 1909: 20.6 x 15.9 | 30.2 x 21.1 cm: In 1907, the year after Clarence White arrived in New York City, he collaborated with Photo-Secession founder Alfred Stieglitz on a series of portraits featuring two models. Shown here holding a glass globe, California model Mabel Cramer poses in a portrait later reproduced as a plate in Camera Work. Said to be a friend of the German American photographer Arnold Genthe and possessing a face worthy of Cleopatra, Cramer and a woman known only as a Miss Thompson, posed for a series of photographs intended to promote photography as an equivalent medium to painting. It was the only time Stieglitz would ever work in tandem with another photographer and shows the extent to which the photographers were allied aesthetically and technically. From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Portrait of Arthur Wesley Dow”: Clarence H. White, American (1871-1925): vintage waxed platinum print, unmounted: 22.1 x 16.6 cm. From the Princeton University Museum website: “White was hired by Arthur Wesley Dow at Teachers College in 1907 and shared Dow’s philosophy that students of the fine and the applied arts should have the same fundamental training based on design principles (anticipating the approach of the Bauhaus in the 1920s).” from: PhotoSeed Archive

“Interior Composition with Figurines”: Charles James Martin, American (1886-1955): vintage etching on plate paper ca. 1915-20: 15.1 x 20.1 | 18.8 x 24.8 cm (trimmed): Martin studied with Arthur Wesley Dow, and later taught alongside him at Columbia University Teachers College. At TC, he also studied photography with Clarence H. White, and became an instructor at White’s School of Photography in 1918. Martin began teaching at the Art Students League of New York in 1921. The following background on Martin and his involvement with the White school appeared in the February, 1921 issue of “The Touchstone and the American Art Student Magazine”: “The Clarence H. White School of Photography announces a course of instruction in Print Making by Prof. Charles J. Martin of the Department of Fine Arts, Columbia University. The purpose of the course is to develop an appreciation of prints through a study of fine examples and particularly through practice in etching plates, cutting blocks and printing. There will be also an opportunity to do photo-engraving such as the line cut and photogravure. The course will consist of twenty sessions. The earlier sessions are now under way, and the response to this announcement gives evidence that the student of the Photographic Arts is endeavoring to gain practical knowledge as well as artistic reproduction.” p. 406: from: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Morning”: Clarence H. White, American (1871-1925): 1905: vintage photogravure published in the volume “The Artistic Side of Photography” by A.J. Anderson: London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1910. 11.9 x 9.3 | 22.5 x 15.1 cm. The plate, titled “A Landscape”, from a platinotype in the collection of A.L. Coburn, appears on p. 155. This moody landscape photograph with figure was taken by White on the bluffs in Newark, Ohio overlooking the Licking River, a location that appears in several of the photographer’s compositions. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art Website, which holds an original platinum print dated to 1905 bequeathed by Alfred Stieglitz: “Morning perfectly embodies the tenets of Pictorialism: expressive, rather than narrative or documentary, content; craftsmanship in the execution of the print; and a carefully constructed composition allied to Impressionist and American Tonalist painting and to popular Japanese prints. His photographs from the period before he moved to New York in 1906 signaled a remove from the modern urban world. Neither genre scene nor narrative tableau, this photograph is a retreat into domesticized nature.” From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Asbury Park Boardwalk”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative: A woman who may have become the photographer’s second wife, Edith, sits with a white hat on her lap on a bench at center in this bustling summer boardwalk scene taken at the Fourth Ave. entrance. The 18-hole Asbury Park Obstacle Golf course can be seen directly behind the bench at center and at left. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “Fifth Avenue Military Parade”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative: Possibly taken before World War II, a little girl at far right holds an American flag as US infantry troops march up Fifth Ave. in New York City. The location of the photograph is W. 27th Street. The former La Primadora Havana Cigar shop can be seen at center at 234 Fifth Ave. and a Horn & Hardart automat is in the lower floor retail area next door at 236 Fifth Ave. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “RMS Queen Elizabeth in New York Harbor”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1940-1945 black and white film negative: Although it is unknown when this photograph was taken, onlookers witness the famed 85,000 ton RMS Queen Elizabeth ocean liner in this photo. She initially docked on March 7, 1940 at Pier 90 in quarantine anchorage off Staten Island following a secret voyage to the US from Greenock, Scotland in order to evade German bombers. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

“Self-Portraits of Laural J. Jones: 1897-1980”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scans taken from ca. 1938-1953: black and white film negatives: The photographer is seen here in a series of self portraits with the center view taken at his office in New York City, where he was employed as the secretary of purchasing for Bell Bakeries, Inc. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “1938: Times Square at Night”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scans taken from ca. 1938 black and white film negative: In this view showing Times Square at night in New York City taken between Christmas and New Year’s Eve 1938, a large banner for the year 1939 hangs above the entrance to the Hotel Astor at far left which exclaims those to Celebrate New year’s Eve in their Grand Ball Room and Grill. A large lighted Christmas tree is in center background while at far right, the Loew’s Criterion marquee advertises in glowing lights the American movie western “Ride a Crooked Mile” starring Akim Tamiroff and Frances Farmer. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “Chock Full o’ Nuts at Night”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative: This nighttime view believed to have been taken in Brooklyn Heights shows the popular post-Depression coffee shop with the large China Palace restaurant behind it. The coffee brand still marketed today featured shops selling a cup of coffee and sandwich for only a nickel. (at the time, there were 18 shops around New York) A police officer looks on at foreground left while a gentleman wearing his hat can be seen seated along a row of stools through the open doorway of the establishment at center. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “Union Rally at Night”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative: Holding flares and American flags, a nighttime rally of custodians employed by New York City custodians, members of School & Library Employees Local Union 74, takes place at an unknown New York City location. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “Entrance to Luna Park, Coney Island at Night”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative: Luna Park was an amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, in New York City that first opened in 1903 and was destroyed by fire in 1944. It finally closed in 1946 after a second fire. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: “Picnic Kiss”: Laural J. Jones, American: 2004 digital scan taken from ca. 1938-1945 black and white film negative. Laying on a blanket shirtless, and with a picnic hamper and two glasses balancing on top at left, the photographer Laural Jones kisses a woman that may be his future spouse Edith at an unknown location. This woman appears in many surviving negatives taken by the photographer, including one of her on the Asbury Park boardwalk at the top of this post. Courtesy: Private Florida Collection

Detail: Top: “Ted Kennedy Throws a Curveball”: ca. 1905: vintage cyanotype, unmounted: 17.6 x 12.5 cm: American Major League Baseball Pitcher Ted Kennedy, 1865-1907, demonstrates following through while throwing an overhand curve ball. Shown wearing his St. Louis Browns baseball uniform, Kennedy excelled in the American spirit of being an entrepreneur, inventor and promoter long after his playing days, and was the first ever hitting coach in the Majors. Bottom: Detail: verso autograph from “Ted Kennedy” cyanotype in graphite believed to be genuine: app: 1.0 x 8.5 cm. From: PhotoSeed Archive

A Message to Washington: “Sweet-faced Little Mother” : Detail: Anonymous American Photographer: 1911: Cyanotype postcard mailed to Washington D.C. from Sweetwater Texas showing a proud Mexican family in front of their Texas & Pacific Railroad section house. 7.4 x 9.9 cm | 8.7 x 13.9 cm: Besides being built with the hard labor of Mexican and other nationalities in the later 19th Century, continued maintenance of American railroads like the “T & P” in places like Texas in the early 20th was often performed by them, with the rail line providing section houses along the track for temporary quarters to live in. Writing to a Mrs. Burnside on the card’s verso, the following appears in neat script: “This man came up and asked me to come and take a picture of his baby, “just borned”-When I got there, the whole family wanted to be taken-so here they are the sweet-faced little mother and the baby, not quite 2 weeks old. They are such a happy-hearted class of people.” From: PhotoSeed Archive

“The Song of the Meadow Lark”: Mathilde Weil: American: (1872-1942) ca. 1900: Platinum print mounted on board signed in red with Weil cipher at lower right: 18.4 x 16.0 cm | 19.1 x 16.5 cm: black-painted wood frame: 28.4 x 25.7 cm: In December, 1899, critic Francis J. Ziegler, writing in Brush and Pencil for a review of the Philadelphia Photographic Salon, said of this photograph: “Among Philadelphia’s artist photographers one of the most prominent is Miss Mathilde Weil, and her contributions to this exhibition are full of artistic excellence. Her “Song of the Meadow-Lark” has a suggestion of the Orient about it, notwithstanding the fact that the landscape is an American field and the two girls who have stopped in their reaping have American faces. This effect, I think, is due to the long braids of hair which hang down the front of one damsel’s bodice, and the white jacket worn by her companion, the trimming of which repeats the same lines in artistic harmony.” (p. 113) From: PhotoSeed Archive

“Woman Behind Plow”: Doris Ulmann, American: (1882-1934): 1933: hand-pulled photogravure: Plate 39 from the deluxe volume Roll Jordan Roll: New York: Robert O. Ballou: (text by Julia Peterkin) 21.2 x 16.3 | 28.4 x 20.5 cm: A landmark photographic volume of the 20th Century featuring ethnographic studies and portraits, this volume features 90 full-page copperplate gravures done in the Pictorial manner. Writing for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Texas, author Steve Watson describes the volume in part: “The book focuses on the lives of former slaves and their descendants on a plantation in the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina. Peterkin, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Scarlet Sister Mary (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928), was born in South Carolina and raised by a black nursemaid who taught her the Gullah dialect. She married the heir to Lang Syne, a 2,000-acre cotton plantation, which became the setting for Roll, Jordan, Roll. Ulmann began photographing there in 1929.” From: PhotoSeed Archive

“Photograph-New York”: Paul Strand, American: (1890-1976): 1917: hand-pulled photogravure from Camera Work XLIX/L: 22.4 x 16.6 | 29.7 x 20.6 cm: This iconic portrait of a blind woman, who has been issued a peddler’s license by the city seen above her sign, was taken by Strand with the aid of either a false or prism lens as part of a series of ground-breaking modernist photographs done on the streets of New York City in the Fall of 1916. Writing the same year this portrait appeared in Camera Work, in August, 1917, an essay on Photography for the journal The Seven Arts concludes with the following observations by Strand-observations that could also certainly apply to the joyful diversity of human beings themselves, as in this case- womankind herself: “The existence of a medium, after all, is its absolute justification, if as so many seem to think, it needs one, and all comparison of potentialities is useless and irrelevant. Whether a water-color is inferior to an oil, or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something else is a sign of impotence. Let us rather accept joyously and with gratitude everything through which the spirit of man seeks to an ever fuller and more intense self-realization.” (pp. 525-26) From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Untitled Study of Woman Reading to Children: Juliana Royster, American: ( 1876-1962) ca. 1905-10: Gelatino-Choloride (POP) print: 11.8 x 10.0 cm: An artist who excelled in multiple mediums, Juliana Royster, from Raleigh, North Carolina, learned photography while attending Saint Mary’s School there, and is best known in the modern era for her founding in 1917, along with husband Jacques (born James) Busbee, (1870-1947) the Jugtown Pottery in Seagrove, North Carolina. From: PhotoSeed Archive

Detail: “Woman with Scrub brush Looking out Window”: Doris Ulmann, American: (1882-1934): 1933: hand-pulled photogravure: Plate 66 from the deluxe volume Roll Jordan Roll: New York: Robert O. Ballou: (text by Julia Peterkin) 21.0 x 16.3 | 28.4 x 20.5 cm: A landmark photographic volume of the 20th Century featuring ethnographic studies and portraits, this volume features 90 full-page copperplate gravures done in the Pictorial manner. Writing for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Texas, author Steve Watson describes the volume in part: “The book focuses on the lives of former slaves and their descendants on a plantation in the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina. Peterkin, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Scarlet Sister Mary (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928), was born in South Carolina and raised by a black nursemaid who taught her the Gullah dialect. She married the heir to Lang Syne, a 2,000-acre cotton plantation, which became the setting for Roll, Jordan, Roll. Ulmann began photographing there in 1929.” From: PhotoSeed Archive

“A Moments Leisure”: Ben J. Boyd: American, ( 1881-1958): ca. 1915-20: Gelatin Silver print, mounted: 24.0 x 14.4 | 26.3 x 15.4 | 34.2 x 26.6 cm: Silhouetted in a doorway, a woman takes a break from hanging laundry seen at center in this unusual home-life study depicting the everyday struggle of women done here by long-time Wilkes-Barre, PA resident and Camera Club member Benjamin Joslin Boyd. From: PhotoSeed Archive

“Female Head Study”: unknown, probably American photographer: ca. 1900-20: Reverse negative, Gelatin-silver over Cyanotype photograph, unmounted: 8.7 x 6.2 cm: Whether intentional or not, and for the purposes of this post, this alternative, multi-process study of a young woman is symbolic for a joyous, multi-ethnic celebration of women’s diversity everywhere. From: PhotoSeed Archive