Collections

The Albert D. Noble, Jr., glass negatives collection consist of 92 glass plate negatives made by photographer Albert D. Noble, Jr. as well as 33 photographic prints, 2 newspaper clippings, and a computer disk with 180 digital images (including additional photographs by Noble, Jr. and copies of older family portraits).

The glass plate negatives are contained in two boxes and include images of Noble, Jr.'s childhood home in Grand Rapids and other private residences and public buildings in the area as well as views taken in Detroit of Noble, Jr.'s family's Christmas decorations, community ice skating, bicycling in the countryside, rural buildings, and regional parks including Belle Isle Park. The majority of images depict people, activities, and scenes from summer vacations to places like Orchard Lake and Upper Straights Lake; a group visit to the French Lick Springs Hotel in Indiana in 1902; views from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901 (misidentified in Bayard C. Schoettle's publication Glass Negatives: Albert Dewitt Noble, Jr. as an event based in Grand Rapids); and numerous studio portraits of family members, acquaintances, and the noted elocution teacher Edna Chaffee Noble (no relation to Noble, Jr.). The glass plates are in a variety of sizes (16.5 x 21.5, 12.5 x 20.5, 11.5 x 16.5, and 10 x 12.5 cm) and each is stored in individual paper slipcases. Some but not all of the splipcases provide information regarding an image's subject matter. Most of the plates are in good condition, with only a few displaying cracks and none being broken. 33 photographic prints (31 unmounted and 2 mounted) are also present and include an image of several cows near a body of water, two mounted albumen prints of "Orchard Lake Cottage," two silver platinum prints showing an unidentified house and a sailboat, 16 unmounted gelatin silver prints showing various domestic, industrial, social and architectural scenes (most of which are represented in the glass negatives), and a series of 11 unmounted snapshots and 1 negative transparency showing scenes from Roseland Park Cemetery and the gravesite of Edna Chaffee Noble. Two newspaper clippings from the July 16 1899 Detroit Free Press Art Supplement related to Noble, Jr.'s second place finish in a photo competition are also included.

The CD-R accompanying the collection contains about 180 scanned images including all 92 of the glass plates present in the collection, approximately 75 additional photographs produced by Noble, Jr., and several photographs of trophies awarded to Noble, Jr., by the Grand Rapids camera club. The CD-R also includes images of early Noble family portraits that were scanned and retouched by Schoettle during his preparation for Glass Negatives: Albert Dewitt Noble, Jr.

The Brown family photograph album contains approximately 100 photographs (mostly cyanotypes) showing the home, neighborhood, family members, and friends of Phildelphia textile manufacturer Crosby M. Brown (1857-1906) and his wife Addie O. Brown (1857-?).

The Brown family photograph album contains approximately 100 photographs (mostly cyanotypes) showing the home, neighborhood, family members, and friends of Phildelphia textile manufacturer Crosby M. Brown (1857-1906) and his wife Addie O. Brown (1857-?).

The album (31 x 26 cm) begins with the birth of May Marguerite Brown in October or November, 1888, and focuses on the subsequent visits of relatives and neighbors, including the Mayers, Crosby M. Wright, and Aunt Ellen Smedley. Images include family group portraits, exterior and interior views of the large family home at 63rd and Median Streets, winter scenes at nearby parks, and views of the neighboring homes of John Bell, Mr. Hess, and Jacob Jones. Other photographs depict Brown family visits to Ellen Smedley at "Bala" in Bryn Mawr (Pennsylvania), to Norwalk (Ohio), and a fishing trip to Waterville (New Hampshire). Also included are views of mill clerk F. A. Reinstein in his office, and industrial buildings from 33rd and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia (possibly the family textile mills).

The Caspar Wistar Miller photograph albums contain approximately 172 photographs stored in two albums that document travels in the western United States, Alaska, and Europe by Philadelphia-area physician Caspar Wistar Miller during the late 19th-century.

Volume 1 (33.5 x 40 cm) has maroon and black leather covers with “Photographs” stamped in gold on the spine and contains 87 photographs related to Miller’s travels in the western United States and Alaska from May to August of 1888. Many images appear to include glass plate negative numbers. Traveling mostly by rail, Miller’s itinerary and layovers can be tracked from the photographs, almost all of which note the date and location. Miller appears to have held an interest in photos of valleys looking first in one direction (“up”) and then the other (“down”), and he also regularly sought out possibilities for bird’s-eye views of towns. The album opens with a photo of a cantilever bridge in Niagara, New York, before documenting Miller’s time in Pullman, Illinois, where he observed the railroad baron George Pullman’s newly built factory town. It is likely that Miller traveled in Pullman railroad cars during this journey. Subsequent images show scenes from Colorado, New Mexico, and California, where Miller spent a month photographing various towns and cities along the Pacific coast before heading into the Northwest. Included are images of the area surrounding the Las Vegas, New Mexico hot springs; street scenes, historic sites, and Native Americans in Santa Fe; and views of buildings, historic sites and natural scenery in Californian locations including Pasadena, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Yosemite, Monterrey (including views of the Hotel Del Monte), Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. Images related to the Northwest include a bird’s-eye view of Portland, Oregon, and a series of photographs of acrobats performing in Tacoma, Washington. Also present are a series of images taken in early July 1888 after Miller joined a few dozen other travelers on a three-week Alaskan cruise exploring inlets, harbors, and villages. Alaskan images include a group portrait of Tlingit women and infants; photos showing a grave totem and totem poles at Fort Wrangell; Tlingit men and women selling wares on a wharf in Juneau; views of Juneau and Sitka; a block house in Sitka; the face of Muir Glacier; a Tlingit camp at Pyramid Harbor; a group portrait of officers in command of the sidewheel steamship “Ancon”; and group portraits of fellow travelers posing with various Tinglit items including a chilkat blanket. A newspaper clipping regarding Alaskan totem poles is also included opposite one of the totem pole images. Photographs taken during Miller’s return home include scenes from Port Townsend, Washington; Yellowstone National Park; and Minnehaha Falls in Minnesota.

Volume 2 (28.5 x 39 cm) also has maroon and black leather covers and contains 85 photographs related to Miller’s European travels between May and August of 1892. The vast majority of these images are high-quality commercially-made photographic prints documenting typical tourist attraction subjects such as historic buildings, street scenes, cathedrals and churches, sculptures, and landscape views. Many of these images were likely produced from glass plate negatives that were originally created in the 1870s and 1880s. A small number of half-tone reproduction images clipped from printed sources are also present. Many of the commercially-produced images include captions within the photographs that provide site information and negative or series numbers, while some also contain blind stamps bearing photographer or studio names. The album begins with images of scenes in Le Havre and Paris, France; the two Le Havre-related photographs appear to have possibly been taken by Miller, while the Parisian views were all purchased from the gallery “A Jeanne D’Arc Paris 3, Place Rivoli, 3.” Most, if not all, of the remaining photographs in the album were also purchased by Miller. Subsequent images include views of sites, sculptures, and Alpine scenery in the Swiss locales of Geneva, Vevey, Montreux, La Tour-de-Peilz, Bern, Zurich, Fribourg, Thun, Oberhofen, Interlaken, and Lucerne. Other Swiss-related images include views of the Lauterbrunnen Valley; the Jungfrau; the Lion of Luzern monument; a wall tower and hotel in Zug; a man operating a dog-powered milk cart; and the Rheinfall. Austrian views include scenes from locations such as Innsbruck, Kufstein, and Rattenberg, while German destinations such as Lindau, Munich, Nuremburg, Heidelberg, Frankfurt am Main, Koblenz, and Cologne are also represented. The back-end of the album contains images from Brussels, Belgium, including another photograph of a dog-powered milk cart.

The David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography consists of over 100,000 images in a variety of formats including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet photographs, real photo postcards, stereographs, and mounted and unmounted paper prints. The collection is primarily made up of vernacular photographs of everyday life in Michigan taken by both professional and amateur photographers from the 1840s into the mid-twentieth century. In addition to supporting local history research, the collection has resources for the study of specific events and subjects. Included are images related to lumbering, mining, suburbanization; the industrialization of cities; travel and transportation; the impact of the automobile; the rise of middle-class leisure society; fashion and dress; ethnicity and race; the role of fraternal organizations in society; and the participation of photographers in business, domestic, and social life. The collection is only partially open for research.

The subject contents of different photographic format series within the Tinder collection vary, depending in part upon how each format was historically used, and the date range of that format's popularity. For example, cartes de visite and cased images are most often formal studio portraits, while stereographs are likely to be outdoor views. Cabinet photographs are frequently portraits, but often composed with less formality than the cartes de visite and cased images. The postcards and the mounted prints contain very diverse subjects. The photographers' file contains many important and rare images of photographers, their galleries, promotional images, and the activities of photographers in the field. See individual series descriptions in the Contents List below for more specific details.

Included throughout are images by both professional and amateur photographers, although those by professionals are extant in far greater numbers.

The collection contains 41 photographs of the British born actor, Owen Fawcett (1838-1904) and his family. It includes formal portraits of Owen Fawcett at various ages, as well as portraits of Mr. Fawcett in costume, some with other actors. The collection also contains formal portraits of families and children, most of which are photographs of Owen Fawcett's grandchildren; also included is a photograph of the Charles E. Hunter family given to Fawcett in 1894.

The collection contains 41 photographs of the British born actor, Owen Fawcett (1838-1904) and his family. It includes formal portraits of Owen Fawcett at various ages, as well as portraits of Fawcett in costume. The collection contains formal portraits of families and children, most of which are photographs of Owen Fawcett's grandchildren; also included is a photograph of the Charles E. Hunter family given to Fawcett in 1894. A loose bookplate of Fawcett's is also present in the collection.

• Two autographed portraits of Fawcett. (1, 2)
• Owen Fawcett, his wife, daughter, and grandchild in their backyard. (13)
• A late 19th century cabinet card enlargement of an earlier portrait of an unidentified young man (a member of the Fawcett family?); this portrait is housed in its original paper-wrapper. (16)
• Two portraits of Fawcett in costume as Colley Cibber. (26, 27)
• Three 1903 portraits of Fawcett in costume as Darby Keegan in the play Robert Emmett. This was Fawcett's last performing role before his retirement. (39-41)

The Tyler-Montgomery-Scott family album chronicles multiple generations of the Tyler, Montgomery, and Scott families of the Philadelphia area from the 1860s through the 1930s. It includes approximately 275 items including studio portrait photographs, informal snapshots, newspaper clippings, postcards, letters, and other ephemera.

The Tyler-Montgomery-Scott family album chronicles multiple generations of the Tyler, Montgomery, and Scott families of the Philadelphia area from the 1860s through the 1930s. It includes approximately 275 items including studio portrait photographs, informal snapshots, newspaper clippings, postcards, letters, and other ephemera.

The album (33 x 25.5 cm) is string-bound with grey cloth covers. Most photographs in the album have detailed handwritten captions identifying people, often with their middle or maiden names as well as the location and date. The presentation of the album is not strictly chronological, especially in the latter half. The early generations of Tylers are represented in photographic formats such as cartes-de-visite, tintypes and cabinet cards, while later generations are represented in snapshots and postcards. When the album reaches the mid-twentieth century, it begins to resemble the modern family album with various forms of ephemera (newspaper clippings, drawings, letters, Christmas cards, etc.) supplementing the photographs of family and friends.

The album begins with a portrait of Frederick Tyler, his daughter Sarah Sophia Cowen, granddaughter Kate “Gwen” Cowen Pratt, and great-granddaughter Kate Pratt. George F. and Louisa R. Tyler as well as their children (including Sidney F. and Helen Beach Tyler) are also featured in the initial section of the album, along with many extended family members, friends, nurses, and pets. Among the family friends pictured are painter Frederick Church, writer Bret Harte, Leonor Ruiz de Apodaca y Garcia-Tienza, Gen. William Buel Franklin, patent lawyer and historian Woodbury Lowery, and the Duke and Duchess of Arcos (Jose Ambrosio Brunetti and Virginia Woodbury Lowery Brunetti). Several interior views of rooms in George F. and Louisa R. Tyler’s home on 201 South 15th St. taken in 1896 are also present, including a photograph of the “Children’s play room” that features their granddaughter Hope Binney Tyler Montgomery holding a doll. Hope, her parents Mary W. and Sidney F. Tyler, her husband Robert “Bob” L. Montgomery, and their children Mary, Ives, and Alexander are well-represented in the album.

Of particular interest are a number of photographs in different sections of the album that depict Theodore Roosevelt and his family. Some of these images are formal studio portraits, while others are more candid snapshots of Roosevelt with other people. One snapshot shows the family at play on the grounds of Sagamore Hill in 1897. Two photos taken at the White House including Helen Beach Tyler, daughter of George F. and Louisa R. Tyler and second cousin to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, are labelled “taken by Ted Roosevelt,” possibly referring to President Roosevelt’s son Theodore Roosevelt III. Helen Beach Tyler may be the “Nellie” who was the recipient of a partial letter included in the album which describes conditions at a wartime hospital (most likely in Italy) in 1915. Only the first two pages of this letter are included, and there is no indication of the identity of the writer. Helen Beach Tyler may also have been the principal compiler of this album. Supporting this possibility is the presence of an interior view of a bedroom at 201 South 15th St. (George F. and Louisa R. Tyler’s home) captioned as “Mother’s bedroom,” a signed portrait of Englishman Lytton Sothern captioned “Given to me by Mr. Sothern June 1872. Mr. Edward Sothern & his son Lytton Sothern sat at our table on ‘Oceanic’ my first trip to Europe,” and a portrait of Sara Schott von Schottenstein, Baronin von Prittwitz-Gaffron, bearing the inscription “to her friend Helen Tyler 1880.”

Other items of interest include portraits of Col. August Cleveland Tyler; several portraits of Brig. Gen. Robert Ogden Tyler; a portrait of French pianist Antoine Marmontel captioned “Mr. Marmontel Professor au Conservatoire gave us music lessons in Paris 1873-74”; a group portrait of Helen Beach Tyler, Mary L. Tyler, Alice Seward, Kitty Seward, and Ida Vinton posing with a silhouette of Sidney F. Tyler; photographs of painted portraits of George F. Tyler and Hope Binney Tyler Montgomery; a series of photos taken at the Spanish Embassy in Mexico City, some of which include the Duke and Duchess of Arcos, Woodbury Lowery, and Archibald Lowery; portraits of the Prittwitz-Gaffron family in Germany; photos taken around the world in various locations including Egypt, India, Germany, and Italy; images taken during an exhibition of sculpture by Stella Elkins Tyler (wife of George Frederick Tyler, Jr.), as well as a program from the event; and photos showing the family of Helen Hope and Edgar Scott.

The Grace Chandler Footlight Club scrapbook contains correspondence, photographs, plays, and ephemera related to the club's activities in the mid- to late 1890s. The amateur theatrical company performed in Eliot Hall, a theater in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

The Grace Chandler Footlight Club scrapbook contains around 45 pages of correspondence, photographs, plays, and ephemera pertaining to the club's activities in the late 19th century. Most items are dated between 1894, when Chandler joined, and 1898.

Chandler collected numerous programs from the Footlight Club's many performances, including several in which she participated as a member of the cast and a few that served as charity events for a convalescent home and other causes; tickets for performances and dress rehearsals are also included. Chandler received official correspondence regarding her membership and directors' reports, as well as manuscript letters congratulating her for recent performances; most are still in their original envelopes. Of particular interest is a letter from Horace Vale to "Miss Verrinder" calling off their engagement after hearing rumors of her "desperate flirtation" with another man (postmarked March 20, 1895). The album includes 7 photographs of sets on a stage. Other items include newspaper clippings, printed copies of plays, an advertisement, a dried rose, and copies of the Footlight Club's constitution as amended in December 1888 and January 1895.

The Henry M. Wheeler photoprint collection consists of approximately 719 images of colonial architecture and historical locations in Massachusetts from ca. 1889 to 1915.

The Henry M. Wheeler photoprint collection consists of approximately 719 images of colonial architecture and historical locations in Massachusetts from ca. 1889 to 1915. The collection is mainly composed of 10 x 15 cm silver platinum, platinotype, and gelatin silver prints as well as 15 x 20.5 cm cyanotypes. A couple of manuscript notes are also present. Much of the focus is on eastern Massachusetts, centering on Wheeler’s hometown of Worcester. Photographs show residential architecture from the 17th century, unidentified colonial homes, and contemporary architecture from Wheeler's day and age. Many of the historical structures documented here were in danger of vanishing during Wheeler's lifetime, and many have long since been destroyed. Other photographs show natural landscapes, noteworthy trees, country roads, parks, public and educational buildings, farms, monuments, bridges, milestones, and gravestones as well as images of famous paintings, engravings, and lithographs. Also included are a small number of images related to Washington, D.C., Maine, and New Hampshire. Wheeler likely took the vast majority of these photographs, though there are several instances where he credited the original sources of certain images. The collection materials were removed from the original album volumes they were stored in and have been rehoused in three 3-ring binder albums and three flat boxes. Most photographs also have original reference numbers that were used by Wheeler to organize the collection.

In addition to this finding aid, the Clements Library has created the Henry M. Wheeler Photoprint Collection Inventory. This inventory lists items according to volume/box location and includes references to specific page/mat numbers, image descriptions (most of which are derived from captions originally inscribed by Wheeler on photograph versos), and photographic formats.

The Historical views of Malden album contains approximately 200 items including photographs, reproductions, prints, newspaper clippings, and maps related to the history of Malden, Massachusetts.

The Historical views of Malden album contains approximately 200 items including photographs, reproductions, prints, newspaper clippings, and maps related to the history of Malden, Massachusetts. The album (26 x 31 cm) is largely disbound with black cloth covers. Many items are loose.

Items of interest include images of street scenes, commercial buildings, schools, houses, gravestones, plaques, monuments relating to the history of Malden (with particular attention paid to the homes of the Winship, Sprague, and Waite families), and several group portraits of Malden students including "Malden High School Cadets" in uniform holding bayoneted rifles and the Centre Grammar School graduating class of 1883 at their school desks. Also present are images of interior and exterior views of city hall (festooned for the 250th anniversary in 1899), and Massachusetts Governor Curtis Guild dedicating Bell Rock around 1905.

Two maps showing Malden in 1852 and 1856 as well as a laid-in negative photostat showing "Sales at auction of the pews in Malden Meeting House, January 13th, 1803" replete with names and prices are also included

The Howell family photograph album contains tintype and carte-de-visite portraits of the relatives of Clarissa Cutler Howell, who lived in Waltz Township, Indiana, in the mid- to late 19th century. Pictures of her children, parents, and siblings are included.

The Howell family photograph album (13cm x 10cm) contains 34 photographs of the relatives of Clarissa Cutler Howell, who lived in Waltz Township, Indiana, in the mid- to late 19th century. Included are 26 tintypes, seven cartes-de-visite, and one silver gelatin print, which shows Clarissa Cutler Howell at an advanced age. A lithograph entitled "Love at the Gate" is tucked into a sleeve behind this print. With the exception of the later print, the photographs are formal studio portraits of Clarissa Cutler Howell and her parents, siblings, children, and other family members. The album's blue leather cover has a geometric relief design.