Jeremy Rowe
I began collecting historic photographs in graduate school, initially seeking daguerreotypes, then progressively moving forward in time to ambrotypes, tintypes, stereographs, mounted photographs and albums, and real photographic postcards. Over the years I focused on images of Arizona and the southwest, Manhattan and its photographers, and the broad category of photographs that tell stories and images that strike me. I also found the cameras, viewers, and ephemera related to the history of photography interesting and important.
I research and write about historic photographs and photographers that produced them. I have served on several boards related to photographic history and have been working to create fellowships and opportunities to support research and scholarship related to the history of photography.
To share with Grolier members, I selected: an 1860s tintype of Lowe Bridge that briefly spanned Broadway in Manhattan; a late 1850s Brewster style viewer for glass and paper stereographs, paired with actual stereographs, including a pair of 1850s images made to see the moon in 3D; and an example of a 19th-century miniature camera.
Silas A. Holmes.
Loew Bridge.
½ Plate tintype of the Loew Bridge built across Broadway at Fulton Street, Room 7, 206 Broadway, New York, New York, c. 1867.
Named for New York City politician Charles Loew, this cast-iron bridge opened in 1866 in response to a request from businessman John Genin for pedestrians to cross Broadway near Saint Paul’s Cathedral at Fulton Street. Silas Holmes had a photographic studio adjacent to the bridge at 206 Broadway and produced many collodion tintype images of pedestrians posed on the bridge. Business men on the west side, shadowed by the bridge, sued. The bridge was removed in 1868.
François Soleil and Jules Duboscq.
Brewster style stereoscope on brass stand.
London, England, c. 1860.
Exhibited with a series of stereographs. The stereoscope was used in conjunction with stereoscopic drawings or photographs (double pictures of a scene taken from slightly different perspectives), to provide the effect of three dimensionality when
experienced through the viewer. The first commercial Brewster stereoscopes were produced by the Parisian opticians François Soleil and Jules Duboscq and displayed at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Queen Victoria was impressed by the stereoscope and images which soon led to great commercial success.
Warren De Larue.
Albumen stereograph of the moon.
London, England, Smith Beck & Beck, May 12, 1859 (left), February 22, 1858 (right).
Scientist and astronomer Warren De Larue was fascinated with making stereoscopic images of the moon. Its distance required making two photographs of the moon many months apart to create the spatial separation needed to create stereoscopic viewing. De Larue made the right image February 22, 1858, and the left image eight months later, on May 12, 1859. Smith Beck & Beck of London published a series of six De Larue lunar stereographs.
Andrew Joseph Russell.
Albumen stereograph a view of Hanging Rock Station Echo Canyon, Utah.
1868-69.
Photographer Andrew Joseph Russell documented construction of the Union Pacific Railroad as it extended to the joining of the rails at promontory point Utah on May 10, 1869. This stereograph of the Mormon community at Hanging Rock Station at Echo City, Utah, frames the few buildings with a dramatic hanging rock in the foreground against a rock pillar in the background. Russell included one of his operators posed as “staffage” to provide scale.
Charles D. Fredericks.
Hand colored stereograph of members of the Japanese Embassy during their visit to New York City (Left: Samurai Ozutsu, Right: 17-year-old Tateishi 'Tommy' Onojiro, the youngest member of the visitors).
585 Broadway, New York, New York, 1860.
The first official Japanese diplomatic visit to America was in June 1860.The Embassy mission included royalty, samurai, and the youngest member of the delegation, 17-year-old interpreter Tateishi Onojiro. Tateishi nicknamed “Tommy,” quickly became the most popular mission member, receiving scores of love letters and having the “Tommy Polka” dedicated in his name. This hand tinted albumen shows Samurai Ozutsu at left and Tommy on right posed in front of the elaborate Fredericks studio backdrop.
Magic Introduction Company.
Photoret miniature pocket watch-style camera box, accessories, and sample print, c. 1893.
Photoret camera (~2” diameter) with tin of unexposed film in original 3x5 wooden box.
Photographer unknown. Example Photoret image on advertising mount.
The Photoret miniature pocket watch-style camera used a meniscus lens and rotating shutter. The camera was designed by W.K.L. Dickson and Herman Casler and manufactured by the Magic Introduction Company circa 1893. The camera took six half-inch by half-inch snap shots or time exposures on round sheet film. Fitted with a meniscus lens with rotating shutter. The nickel-plated miniature camera was shipped in a simple wooden box and was originally priced at $2.50.