New Bedford Photograph Albums, ca. 1890s
155 photographs in 2 albums
The New Bedford photograph albums consist of 155 cyanotype photographs contained in two albums that show scenes from New Bedford, Massachusetts and surrounding areas during the 1890s.
Volume 1 (18 x 25.5 cm) has a pebbled red leather cover and contains 101 cyanotypes, while Volume 2 (18.5 x 23.5) has a beige cloth cover with "Kodak Views" embroidered on the front and contains 54 cyanotypes. Both volumes are in fair condition. Together, these albums provide a wide-ranging, informal, town-and-country portrait of New Bedford in the last decade of the 19th-century. Most locations are unidentified, but they include city streets, commercial buildings, residential neighborhoods, churches, farms, woodland paths, Civil War fortifications, bridges, waterfront scenes, and views of the local shoreline. Also present are several bird's-eye views, two photographs of artwork, and pictures of ships of various kinds. Particular attention is given to the classic whaling vessels that still resided at New Bedford's harbor at the time these albums were produced. The booming textile industry of the time, on the other hand, is hardly represented: a solitary image shows a mill with a smokestack and workers’ housing. A few captions are included in Volume 2 as well as on the backs of some photographs, but for the most part the things and places pictured are not identified.
Although there is no official attribution to a photographer in either album, several of the exact same images appear in the souvenir booklet of the New Bedford Semi-Centennial and Industrial Exhibition (1897) and are credited to “R. R. Topham.” Robert R. Topham was a longtime New Bedford resident who at the time these albums were produced worked as a clerk in the city assessor's office.