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      NMAH Photographic History Collection

      Smithsonian Staff

      #nmahphc

      The Photographic History Collection (PHC) represents the history of the medium of photography. The PHC holds the work of over 2000 identified photographers and studios, about 200,000 photographs, about 15,000 cameras, pieces of apparatus, studio equipment and sensitized materials. The scope of the collection spans from daguerreotypes to digital and includes unidentified to well-known photographers, international and United States-centered objects, and familiar and experimental photographic formats.

      The Photographic History Collection, now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, was founded in 1896. The PHC was established by Thomas Smillie, the Smithsonian's first official photographer. Smillie established two photography collections ---the PHC and the Photo Lab which is now part of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, and he ran them simultaneously until his death in 1917. 

      The PHC uses the Smithsonian Learning Lab as a place to offer a view into the collection's rich and diverse holdings. What is presented here online is not the entire Photographic History Collection. This digital space is a work in progress. We started publishing to the Learning Lab in February 2020 and are adding and improving as quickly as we can.

      How to use the Smithsonian Learning Lab to discover PHC collections. 

      • To see a list of photographer and maker names, go here [link to come].
      • In the Learning Lab, the PHC's collections are organized into four groups: Photographer, Format/Process, Subject, and Cameras and Apparatus.
      • The Learning Lab collection only contains objects that have images attached to digital records. There may be additional objects and record information found at collections.si.edu.
      • The Learning Lab collection may only contain a sampling of images if the collection is substantial. Additional materials may be found at collections.si.edu.
      • Email us if you are looking for something specific.
      • Tip, use the tool that allows the user to see the collections alphabetically.

      Collection Staff:  Shannon Thomas Perich, Curator

      Contact: nmahphotohistory@si.edu

      General Keywords: history of photography, photographic history, photographer, photographers, portraits, landscapes, cameras, photographic equipment, studio equipment, fine art photography, experimental photography, digital photography, patent models, photographic studio, ephemera, documents, cinema history, early motion picture, photojournalism, amateur photography, photography exhibitions, commercial photography

      Photographic keywords: daguerreotype, calotype, salted paper print, gelatin silver print, tintype, ferrotype, ambrotype, collodion on glass, glass plate negative, platinum print, platinum-palladium print, photographs on fabric, cyanotype, cased images, ivorytype, stereoview, waxed paper negative, hologram, lenticular, Kromograms, press print, photo jewelry, stanhope, micro photography

      Additional research resources: In December 2019, research resources that had been held in the division were distributed to other Smithsonian units. The "Personality Files" that contained biographies, obituaries, exhibition announcements, and such were absorbed by the Smithsonian Library NPG/AA branch; the list of subjects can be found here [link to come]. The "Archives Reference Files" that contained information about companies, products, and occasionally processes, were absorbed into the trade literature collection at the National Museum of American History branch of the Smithsonian Library. The Science Service images and files, the divisions's exhibition history files, personal files, correspondence files, and more can be found at the Smithsonian Archives.

      NMAH Photographic History Collection's collections

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      Photographer: Newman, Arnold #nmahphc

      <p>This is a collection of photographs from the Photographic History Collection by Arnold Newman, and a portrait of Newman by Charles Rushton.  Many of Newman's portraits are of artists, scientists, musicians, dancers, architects, and businessmen.<br></p> <p>For additional images, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords: portraiture, artists, photographs of famous people, black and white photography, modernism, composition, fine art photography</p>
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      Subject: Musical Instruments #nmahphc

      <p>This is a selection of photographs from the Photographic History Collection of people with musical instruments. This Learning Lab collection includes conductors, orchestras and bands. It includes professionals, amateurs, communities, school, and military associations. <br></p> <p></p> <p>For additional images, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p></p> <p>Keywords (subject): guitar, electric guitar, steel guitar, banjo, lute, mandolin, piano, piano forte, saxophone, trumpet, tuba, ukulele, harp, zither, drum, snare drum, drum kit, violin, fiddle, cello, bass, harmonica, squeeze box, harpsichord, dulcimer, clarinet, kazoo, marimba, tambourine, stringed instruments, brass instruments, woodwind instruments, concert, band, orchestra, music, musicians, performers, conductors, soloist, pianist, violinist, fiddler, sheet music, music stand, high school band, military band, all-women band, <em>Taps</em>, famous people, celebrity, folk music, community dance, classical music, entertainment, school performance, musical instruction, practice, performance, art made with musical instruments, musical instrument made with scrap metal, musical instruments depicted in artworks</p> <p></p> <p>Keywords (photography): carte-de-visite, cabinet card, press print, portraiture, head shot, advertising, collectible, color carbro, gelatin silver print, fine art photography, documentary photography, snapshot, real photo postcard, stereoview, stereograph, digital photography, translucent composite, tintype, cyanotype, color photography, printing out process</p>
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      Photographer: Palmer, Bernice #nmahphc

      <p>This is a collection of materials from the Photographic History Collection used and created by Bernice Palmer. As a teenage, she was on the Carpathia that rescued some of the Titanic survivors. Her camera is on view at the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.<br></p> <p>Included in this collection is a behind the scenes video that shows the newspaper in which her photographs were published.</p> <p>For additional materials, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords: women photographer, box camera, amateur photography, citizen journalist, rescue, rescuer, survivor, iceberg, sinking ship, disaster, newspaper, ethics, contract, travel photography</p>
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      Subject: Window Views #nmahphc

      <p>This is an assortment of photographs from the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History related to windows. This collection was created in response to the COVID-19 quarantine project known as window serenade.<br></p> <p>The photographs in this collection were made by snapshot, amateur, commercial, fine art, and professional photographers. They used windows for a range of artistic, cultural, metaphorical, and other purposes. The photographic processes and formats are as diverse as their uses for display, communication, documentation, entertainment, and expression.</p> <p>Photographers included in this collection are, Paul Anderson, Max Baur, Paul Caponigro, Mac Cosgrove-Davies, Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr,  Elliot Erwitt, Elizabeth Bliss Howe, Gertrude Kasebier, Frederick Langenheim and Alexander Beckers, Fred Maroon, Joel Meyerowitz, Chuck Mintz, Carl Mydans, Titian Ramsay Peale, Charles Ruston, Kosti Ruohomaa, Burk Uzzle, Diana Walker, Edward Weston, and Joseph Zalensky.</p> <p>This Learning Lab collection focuses primarily on domestic spaces and photographer's studios rather than storefront windows or notably public spaces. </p> <p>For additional images, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords: window, windows, through my window, from my window, sunlit, window light, view from window, out window, looking out of window, window serenade, view to exterior</p> <p>Historical notes:</p> <p>The Langenheim and Beckers photograph from their studio window may be the first paper photograph of New York City. </p> <p>Titian Ramsay Peale made experimental photographs and views from his Washington, DC home in the 1850s.</p> <p>Charles Rushton photographed photographers living and working in the American southwest in the 1980s. For more than the few seen in this collection, see the collection <em>Charles Rushton</em> in the Learning Lab.</p> <p><br></p>
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      Photographer: Noggle, Anne #nmahphc

      <p>This is a collection of four panorama photographs by photographer Anne Noggle made in the 1960s of a kitchen, a cafe lunch counter, a row of mailboxes, and a neighborhood street corner.  <br></p> <p>Keywords: women, aging, panoramic photo, panorama photography, neighborhood, mailboxes</p> <p><br></p> <p>Anne Noggle was born in 1922 in Evanston, IL and spent her formative years living there with her mother and sister—two women who would become important characters in Noggle’s photography. </p> <p>Prior to her photography career, Noggle led a markedly different life.  In 1940, with her student pilot license in hand, Anne Noggle became a pilot and eventually a flight instructor as a Women’s Air Force Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II.  At the conclusion of the war, Anne taught flying, joined an aerial circus, and worked as a crop duster.  Art grabbed Noggle’s attention while she was on active duty in the air force in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Stationed in Paris, she spent much of her free time at the Louvre.  Forced into early retirement due to emphysema caused by crop dusting, Noggle registered for college as an art history major at the University of New Mexico in 1959.  She was thirty-eight years old. </p> <p>Anne Noggle’s early photographs utilize the 35mm Panon camera.  Most of these 140° photographs are of an aging woman and her surroundings.  In Janice Zita Grover’s introduction to <em>Silver Lining:  Photographs by Anne Noggle</em>, she writes, about the panoramic format, that it is characteristic “to distort space in such a way that subjects distant from the lens appear flattened against deep space; between this effect and the necessity for reading the image side to side, the format gets as close as the still camera can to the implied narrative unfolding of a panoramic opening shot in a film . Noggle’s Panon images of her mother’s circle in Santa Fe have exactly these qualities, as if a newly landed observer…were scrutinizing these women, their curious rites and settings, for the first time.” </p> <p>By the early 1970s, however, Noggle moved on to wide-angle portraits featuring herself, her mother, sister, and her mother’s friends.  It is for these photographs that Noggle is most known.  Her interest in women and the aging process is exemplified by self-portraits of Noggle’s own face-lifts and images of her aging body. </p> <p>Noggle has been granted two NEA grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship.</p> <p>Major holdings of Anne Noggle’s work can be found at:  the Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, University of New Mexico—University Art Museum, and the Museum of New Mexico Photographic Archives.  In Washington, DC, American Art has one photograph from Noggle’s <em>Agnes</em> series of two women playing croquet.</p> <p><br></p>
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      Formats and Processes: Panorama #nmahphc

      <p>This is an assortment of photographs and cameras from the Photographic History Collection related to panorama photography.<br></p> <p>The Photographic History Collection (PHC) collection of panoramic objects includes about about 150 panoramic photographs and sixty pieces of panoramic-related equipment including cameras and specialized accessories such as film holders, printing frames, tripods, gear sets, lenses, and film.  The collection is organized into four main groups: 1) Patent and prototype panoramic cameras, 2) standard production panoramic cameras, 3) panoramic photographs, and 4) panoramic related material such as patents, letters, presentations, and books</p> <p>The smallest panorama is on a real photo postcard at about four inches long; the longest panorama is by Robert Weingarten, <em>Guernica</em>, at 120 inches long.</p> <p><strong>Keywords (subject)</strong>: landscape, cityscape, bridge, bedroom, architecture, hurricane, disaster, neighborhood, porch, mailboxes, cafe, river, Washington, DC; Paris, France; Guernica, Spain</p> <p><strong>Keywords (photography):</strong> panorama, panoramic, camera, fine art photography, hand-colored photography, gelatin silver print, salt print, real photo postcard,  Pictorialism, documentary photography, aerial photography, architectural photography</p> <p>See additional Learning Lab collections for photographers <em>Ashley Gilberston, Anne Noggle, </em>and <em>Friedrich von Martens</em> for additional panoramas.</p> <p>For additional material, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Photographers included in this Learning Lab collection:</p> <ul><li>Ashley Gilbertson</li><li>Alfred W. Hoyt</li><li>Walter J. Hussey</li><li>Friedrich von Martens</li><li>Anne Noggle</li><li>Titian Ramsay Peale</li><li>Ken Regan</li><li>Art Sinsabaugh</li><li>Robert Weingarten</li></ul> <p>Cameras use by:</p> <ul><li>Frederick Mueller</li><li>Louie Palu</li></ul>
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      Subject: Domestic Kitchens #nmahphc

      <p>This is an assortment of photographs featuring domestic kitchens from the Photographic History Collection. The photographs appear in many different formats and process, and were created by professional and amateur photographers for a variety of purposes, such as commercial, advertising, documentary, social commentary, snapshot, and humor. <br></p> <p>For this collection, "kitchen" was considered as a space within the home, a place in which food was cooked for non-military and non-commercial purposes, outdoor kitchens and cooking, and things found in kitchens. </p> <p>Additional Photographic History Collection Learning Lab collections related to food include, Food, Eateries, Agriculture, and Meals and Eating.</p> <p>For additional images, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords: kitchen, kitchen table, stove, sink, dishes, meal, cooking, meal preparation, baking, pot, pat, knife, spoon, fork, bowl, grilling, barbecuing, outdoor kitchens.</p>
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      Subject: The 1896 Washington Salon & Art Photographic Exhibition #nmahphc

      <p>This collection of photographs was the first purchase of art photography for what is now the Photographic History Collection.<br></p> <p>Keywords: Smithsonian history, art photography, pictorialism, pictorialist, Thomas Smillie, exhibition history</p> <p>Three prestigious Washington, D.C., organizations played a major role in the establishment and acceptance of art photography in America. The Camera Club of the Capital Bicycle Club sponsored the 1896 Washington Salon and Art Photographic Exhibition. The Cosmos Club provided the exhibit space. And fifty of the salon's images were purchased to expand the Smithsonian Institution's national collection.</p> <p>The online exhibition that explores this exhibition further can be found at <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/1896/index.htm" style="background-color:rgb(63,63,63);">https://americanhistory.si.edu/1896/index.htm</a>.</p> <p></p>
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      Photographer: Connell, Will #nmahphc

      <p>This is a selection of photographs by Will Connell from his series, <em>In Pictures</em>, from the Photographic History Collection. <br></p> <p>For additional collections, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords: satire, humor, critique, Hollywood, manipulated photography, composite photography, surrealism</p> <p>Will Connell (1898-1961) was an influential photographer, teacher, and author in Southern California known for his often-satirical “modern pictorialist” style, commercial photography work, and mentorship of a generation of photographers. The National Museum of American History’s Photographic History collection received a donation of 11 prints of various subjects from Connell’s wife in 1963. This donation was followed by another, from Connell’s son, in 1977, comprised of the 49 prints published in <em>In Pictures</em>. Connell was born in McPherson, Kansas, but moved to California soon after. </p> <p>As a young man in Los Angeles, Connell came into contact with the thriving California camera clubs of the 1910s and 1920s, and more importantly, the burgeoning Hollywood film industry. After a brief stint in the U.S. Army Signal Corps at the end of the first World War, Connell worked a variety of odd jobs while experimenting in amateur photography. </p> <p>Several motion picture studios hired Connell to photograph actors and actresses in the 1920s and 1930s, and he soon became a professional. Connell’s glamour shots of stars such as Myrna Loy, as well as his growing body of art photography, reveal pictorialist influence, and his work was often exhibited at salons and exhibitions throughout the United States. </p> <p>In the 1930s, Connell began working as a photographer for magazines including the <em>Saturday Evening Post</em>, <em>Colliers</em>, <em>Time</em>, and <em>Vogue</em>, started teaching photography at Art Center College, and continued work at the Los Angeles studio he opened in 1925. Connell spent the rest of his life in Los Angeles, teaching, judging work, producing commercial work, and writing, notably, his "Counsel by Connell" column in <em>US Camera</em>, which he authored for 15 years. </p> <p>His first book, <em>In Pictures</em>, was published in 1937. Now considered a classic work of satire, the book featured montaged, often surreal images that mocked the Hollywood studio system and a public enamored with the motion picture industry. The photographs were published alongside a fictional account of a meeting of Hollywood moguls, written by several of Connell’s friends in the business. While the images appear to be a marked departure from Connell’s earlier soft-focus pictorialism, the sharp, poignant photographs nevertheless retain that movement’s emphasis on composition and communication of a message. <em>In Pictures</em> also pays homage to the film industry where the photographer cut his teeth – many of the images feature close-ups, characteristic stage lighting, and influence of the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Connell, in his work and teaching until his death in 1961, is cited as an influence on an entire generation of photographers, including Dr. Dain Tasker (COLL.PHOTOS.000031). </p> <p>Connell's  1949 book <em>About Photography</em> outlined an artistic philosophy that stressed a straight-forward, communicative style of photography and expressed the author’s belief that even the most commercial work can have artistic merit. A 1963 monograph in US Camera featured fond remembrances from friends Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, among others, who praised Connell for his warm personality and unique work. </p>
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      Subject: Food #nmahphc

      <p>This is an assortment of photographs broadly related to food.<br></p> <p>Other collections to see in the Learning Lab include Eateries, Kitchens, Meals and Eating, and Agriculture.</p> <p>For additional collections, search collections.si.edu.</p> <p>Keywords (subject): Food, market, grocery, fruit, vegetable, apple, advertising, chicken, sales, canned goods, commercial, tomato, ketchup, Heinz, grocer, dry goods, groceries, market, farmer's market, general store</p> <p>Keywords (photography): gelatin silver print, real photo postcard, stereoview, color carbro, fine art photography, advertising, documentary photography</p>
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      Photographer: Horenstein, Henry #nmahphc

      <p>This an assortment of photographs by Henry Horenstein from over 150 photographs in the Photographic History Collection. Most are gelatin silver prints, but also, cibachrome, and chromogenic prints.<br></p> <p>A portfolio of photographs created by Horenstein's Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Professional Practices class in 2010, includes a work by Horenstein (accession 2012.0122). A student work by Horenstein is included in a RISD Photographic Education Society Portfolio from 1971  (accession 2004.3040) along with a work by his professor, Harry Callahan.</p> <p>Keywords: country music, horse racing, gambling, baseball stadium, burlesque, animals, honky-tonk, documentary photography, baseball, music, performers, fans, backstage, Grand Ole Opry, blue grass performer, musical instruments, guitar, slide guitar, harmonica, photojournalism, bars, music park, jukebox</p> <p>Henry Horenstein (1948-) trained in history in the late 1960s at the University of Chicago and with the British historian EP Thompson. Coming of age at time when the new social history focused attention upon anonymous people, the working class and the role of culture, Horenstein took those lessons and applied them to his photography. He earned an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1973. While at RISD Horenstein studied with noted photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. It was actually Callahan who encouraged Horenstein to pursue his passions for photography and country music. Since then, Horenstein has made a career of chronicling a series of subcultures including horse-racing and gambling, baseball stadiums, and burlesque performers, as well as being noted for his photographs of animals. His works are found in books, record covers, magazine publications, museum collections, and gallery walls.</p> <p>Horenstein is a professor at RISD. In addition to teaching classes, he is an active photographer always working on photographic and publishing projects. Horenstein is well-published, with over 25 books that either feature his photography or are widely used photography text books. He wrote the first darkroom textbooks, Basic Phtography and Beyond Basic Photgraphy. In Fall 2003, his book Honky-Tonk was published, containing an afterword written by NMAH curator Charlie McGovern. In 2006, NMAH featured the exhibition, Honky-Tonk: Country Music Photographs by Henry Horenstein, 1972-1981.<br><br>The collection consists of subjects such as fans and performers at outdoor music parks, in the parking lot, and performers on stage. Print sizes vary between 8 X 10 and 11X 14. The two 16 X 20 prints are a view of a crowd seen from backstage with JD Crowe & The South in sillouette, and “Bartender,” Wanda Lohnman leaning on the bar at Tootsies Orchid Lounge.<br><br>List of Performers and Venues Depicted in the Collection:<br><br>Venues: Fred’s Lounge in Mamou, LA; The Lonestar Ranch, Reed’s Ferry, NH; Hillbilly Ranch, Boston, MA; Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville, TN; The Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Theater, Nashville, TN.<br><br>Performers: Abshire Nathan; Acuff, Roy; Akeman, David “Stringbean”; Bailey, Deford; Bare, Bobby; Bird, Billy; Blake, Norman; Blue Sky Boys; Brown, Clarence "Gatemouth"; Burns, Jethro; Butler, Carl and Pearl; Carter, Anita;  Carter, Mother Maybelle and Helen Carter; Cash, Tommy; Clements, Vassar; Cline, Curly ; y; Cooper, Carol Lee; Cooper, Stoney and Wilma Lee; Crook Brothers; Curless, Dick; Dickens, Little Jimmy; Flatt, Lester; Floyd, Hamonica Frank; Harkreader, Fiddlin' Sid; Harris, Emmy Lou ; Holcomb, Roscoe; Holy Modal Rounders; Hughes Family Show; Jackson, Stonewall; JD Crowe & the New South; Jennings, Waylon; Johnson Mountain Boys; Jones, George; Jones, Grandpa and Ramona; Kirby, Brother Oswald; Lewis, Jerry Lee; Lilly Brothers; Lilly Family; Lynn, Loretta; Magaha, Mac; Martin, Jimmy; McCoury, Del; Monroe, Bill;  Lester Flatt; Monroe, Bill and Roland White; Monroe, Bill and the Bluegrass Boys; Monroe, Charlie; Moody, ; Clyde; Nixon, Charlie; Osborne Brothers; Parton, Dolly; Parton, Dolly and Porter Wagoner; Pearl, Minnie (Sarah Ophelia Colley) and Peewee King; Riley, Jeannie C.; Ritter, Woodward Maurice “Tex”; Seeger, Pete; Shepherd, Jean; Skaggs, Ricky; Smith, Connie; Snow, Hank; Snow, Rev. Jimmy Rodgers; Stanley, Ralph; Tubb, Ernest; Tubb, Justin; Turner, Grant; Turner, Spyder; Val, Joe; Wagoner, Porter; Warren, Paul; Watson, Arthel Lane “Doc”; Watson, Merle; Wells, Muriel Deason “Kitty”; Whitley, Keith; Williams, Hank Jr.; Wright, Johnny</p>
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      Photographer: Becker, Murray #nmahphc

      <p>Murray Becker was one of the key photographers of the Hindenburg disaster, the crash of a Nazi dirigible at Lakehurst, NJ on May 6, 1937. The Murray Becker collection consists predominantly of sixteen silver gelatin prints of the Hindenburg disaster. It also includes an oversized scrapbook of newspaper articles and photos covering the disaster, as well as a well-known photograph of a teary-eyed Lou Gehrig announcing his retirement from baseball.<br></p> <p>Keywords:  Hindenburg disaster, Associated Press, AP, Lou Gehrig, photojournalism, dirigible, flight disaster, photojournalism, media history, iconic photographs, scrapbooking</p> <p>On May 6, 1937 Becker and a score of other photographers, including Sam Shere of the International News Photo (INP) and Charles Hoff of the New York Daily News, appeared for a routine night landing of the Hindenburg. As the dirigible pulled in, lines were dropped from the aircraft so that it could be safely reined in to the ground below. Without warning, an explosion was heard, and the entire aircraft was consumed by flame in about 47 seconds. During those 47 seconds, when other photographers present shot one photograph at the most, Murray Becker quickly took three slides using his 4x5 Speed Graphic camera. The following day pictures of the event were reproduced in thousands of newspapers around the globe.</p> <p>The photographs of the Hindenburg exploding affected newspaper readers in a way that words could not. After those photographs were reproduced across the United States and around the world, many newspaper stories were not considered credible unless they had images to support the stories. Becker went on to produce a photograph of Lou Gehrig announcing his retirement in 1939 for which he also received awards. Becker served as Chief Photographer of the Associated Press for a full thirty-two years before he retired.</p> <p><br></p> <p><br></p>
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