Photography

Leica 35mm Camera

The millions of photographs in the Museum's collections compose a vast mosaic of the nation's history. Photographs accompany most artifact collections. Thousands of images document engineering projects, for example, and more record the steel, petroleum, and railroad industries.

Some 150,000 images capture the history, art, and science of photography. Nineteenth-century photography, from its initial development by W. H. F. Talbot and Louis Daguerre, is especially well represented and includes cased images, paper photographs, and apparatus. Glass stereographs and news-service negatives by the Underwood & Underwood firm document life in America between the 1890s and the 1930s. The history of amateur photography and photojournalism are preserved here, along with the work of 20th-century masters such as Richard Avedon and Edward Weston. Thousands of cameras and other equipment represent the technical and business side of the field.

Date: 1930s

Woman in uniform standing in front of a monument

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1940s
ID Number
2017.0309.0017
accession number
2017.0309
catalog number
2017.0309.0017

Inspecting tobacco leaf

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Keppler, Victor
ID Number
PG.006259.C
catalog number
6259C
accession number
238737

Photographic History Collection: Autochrome

date made
1907-1935
ID Number
COLL.PHOTOS.000023
accession number
282642
catalog number
3364.B
3364.C
accession number
282643
catalog number
3365
accession number
282644
catalog number
3366
accession number
67310
catalog number
3565.1 to 3565.41
accession number
69630
catalog number
3629
3630
3631
accession number
103458
catalog number
3882
accession number
107614
catalog number
3900
accession number
128483
catalog number
4021-0
4021R
accession number
136923
catalog number
4066.A -.C
accession number
242660
catalog number
6451.1 to 6491
accession number
270411
catalog number
67.89
accession number
1967.217
catalog number
67.217.1
accession number
282785
catalog number
69.168
77.22
82.545.620
accession number
1984.0044
catalog number
84.44.1 to 84.44.282
accession number
1990.0126
catalog number
90.126.19 to 90.126.34
accession number
1996.0231
catalog number
1996.0231.009 to 1996.0231.649

Cherry St.

Unmounted silver print by Berenice Abbott, "Cherry St." Street with three buildings, lamppost bottom right, man seated on steps of far left building.
Description (Brief)
Unmounted silver print by Berenice Abbott, "Cherry St." Street with three buildings, lamppost bottom right, man seated on steps of far left building. Two women in light-colored clothing seated on step of center building, third woman wearing dark colors seated on folding chair; two young girls standing on top step in front of same building, both wearing light-colored clothing. Debris in road. Sign on building reads, "basement to let, Hallock 400 Grand at NY." Verso: Stamped two times with "Photograph, Berenice Abbott, Maine 04406," both on top of older stamp that reads, "Photograph by Berenice Abbott, Commerce St, New York 14, NY." Verso also includes pricing chart that was written in pencil and then erased, reading: "11x14 $60; 14x17 $65; 16x20 $70; [illegible size] $100; 24x30 $175; [illegible size] $175; 40x60 [illegible price]. Recto: signed by Abbott.
Description
During the 1920s, Berenice Abbott was one of the premier portrait photographers of Paris, her only competitor was the equally well-known Dada Surrealist Man Ray who had served as her mentor and employer before she launched her own career. An American expatriate, Abbott enjoyed the company of some of the great twentieth century writers and artists, photographing individuals such as Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim and James Joyce. One of the critical elements of Abbott’s portraiture was a desire to neither enhance nor interfere with the sitter. She instead wished to allow the personality of her subject to dictate the form of the photograph, and would often sit with her clients for several hours before she even began to photograph them. This straight-forward approach to photography characterized Abbott’s work for the duration of her career.
Thematically and technically, Abbott’s work can be most closely linked to documentary photographer Eugène Atget (COLL.PHOTOS.000016), who photographed Paris during the early 1900s. Abbott bought a number of his prints the first time she saw them, and even asked him to set some aside that she planned to purchase when she had enough money. After his death in 1927, Abbott took it upon herself to publicize Atget’s work to garner the recognition it deserved. It was partly for this reason she returned to the United States in 1928, hoping to find an American publisher to produce an English-language survey of Atget’s work. Amazed upon her arrival to see the changes New York had undergone during her stay in Paris, and eager to photograph the emerging new metropolis, Abbott decided to pack up her lucrative Parisian portrait business and move back to New York.
The status and prestige she enjoyed in Paris, however, did not carry over to New York. Abbott did not fit in easily with her contemporaries. She was both a woman in a male-dominated field and a documentary photographer in the midst of an American photographic world firmly rooted in Pictorialism. Abbott recalls disliking the work of both photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his then protégé Paul Strand when she first visited their exhibitions in New York. Stieglitz, along with contemporaries such as Ansel Adams and Edward Steichen, tended to romanticize the American landscape and effectively dismissed Abbott’s straight photography as she saw it. Not only was Atget’s work rejected by the Pictorialists, but a series of critical comments she made towards Stieglitz and Pictorialism cost Abbott her professional career as a photographer. Afterwards, she was unable to secure space at galleries, have her work shown at museums or continue the working relationships she had forged with a number of magazine publications.
In 1935, the Federal Art Project outfitted Abbott with equipment and a staff to complete her project to photograph New York City. The benefit of a personal staff and the freedom to determine her own subject matter was unique among federally funded artists working at that time. The resulting series of photographs, which she titled Changing New York, represent some of Abbott’s best-known work. Her photographs of New York remain one of the most important twentieth century pictorial records of New York City. Abbott went on to produce a series of photographs for varied topics, including scientific textbooks and American suburbs. When the equipment was insufficient to meet her photographic needs, as in the case of her series of science photographs, she invented the tools she needed to achieve the desired effect. In the course of doing so, Abbott patented a number of useful photographic aids throughout her career including an 8x10 patent camera (patent #2869556) and a photographer’s jacket. Abbott also spent twenty years teaching photography classes at the New School for Social Research alongside such greats as composer Aaron Copland and writer W.E.B. DuBois.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Abbott’s career was the printing of Eugène Atget’s photographs, one of the few instances in which one well-known photographer printed a large number of negatives made by another well-known photographer. The struggle to get Atget’s photographs the recognition they deserved was similar to Abbott’s efforts to chart her own path by bringing documentary photography to the fore in a Pictorialist dominated America. Though she experienced varying levels of rejection and trials in both efforts, her perseverance placed her in the position she now holds as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century.
The Bernice Abbott collection consists of sixteen silver prints. The photographs represent a range of work Abbott produced during her lifetime, including her early portraiture work in Paris, her Changing New York series, Physics and Route 1, U.S.A. series.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1931
maker
Abbott, Berenice
ID Number
PG.69.216.09
accession number
288852
catalog number
69.216.09

Old Age

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1935
maker
Karplus, A.
ID Number
PG.004161B.24
catalog number
4161B.24
accession number
152565

Freezia

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1930s
maker
Tasker, Dain L.
ID Number
PG.66.65.080P1
catalog number
66.65.80P.1
accession number
264476

Woman in uniform standing in front of sign

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1940s
ID Number
2017.0309.0043
accession number
2017.0309
catalog number
2017.0309.0043

World Map

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
ID Number
2013.0327.0723
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0723

Soldier leaning against Wrangler

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1945
ID Number
2016.0143.06
catalog number
2016.0143.06
accession number
2016.0143

Rain

From Pictorial Artistry: The Dramatization of the Beautiful in Photography"I was at the foot of the St. Gothard in Switzerland, in the little village of Hospenthal. Cowbells had awakened me at five-thirty A.M. The dawn was gray and dim, with the rain coming steadily down.
Description
From Pictorial Artistry: The Dramatization of the Beautiful in Photography
"I was at the foot of the St. Gothard in Switzerland, in the little village of Hospenthal. Cowbells had awakened me at five-thirty A.M. The dawn was gray and dim, with the rain coming steadily down. At the sound of the bells only one thought came to mind. I simply must get a cow picture. So I rushed to the window, grabbing my camera on the way. But I was too late… not a cow in sight. My disappointment only made me more eager to take a cow picture at this time. Since optimism has always been one of my greatest faults, I was still hopeful that some more cows would obligingly pass by my window. I put the camera in focus and rested it on the window ledge with a cloth covering the camera safely from moisture. There now, I thought to myself, I am ready for any picture possibility within range of my window. I hope it will be cows.
With this wish, I returned to my bed to await the tinkle of the cowbells. But instead at every sound outside my window, up I would jump and rush to look. An hour of this seemingly mad performance and I was through with bed, choosing instead to doze by the window. During the period of this self-imposed vigil, I managed to get a number of interesting pictures of passersby. The picture reproduced here is one of the most interesting. But woe for my optimism and fortitude. There is not a cow picture in the lot!
Composition:
Steelyard with S-curve. An ideal study for the student of dynamic symmetry. Although the two figures moving in opposite directions seem to provide a double motive, they are held together so forcefully by the leading lines of the road and the enclosing perspective of the buildings that unity and harmony remain.
Technical Problems:
The poor light required that I use an exposure of 1/10 of a second. I had to watch the feet of the woman as she walked so that my exposure would be accurately timed to catch the least possible movement. In the original scene a large and swift-flowing waterfall was at the left. Because this tended to distract attention and confuse the composition, it was etched and retouched out of the negative. The curved path, the stones and steps were all too dark and had to be carefully revalued to give the figure of the woman necessary emphasis. Bright patches in unimportant areas were subdued by reduction.
Data:
Camera: 2 ½ x 3 ¼ Makina
Lens: Plaubel Anticomar
Stop: f.6.3
Exposure: 1/10 from window sill
Film: Agfa Super Plenachrome
Print: 14x17 Defender Velour Black"
by Adolf Fassbender, 1937
Location
Currently not on view
date made
before 1937
maker
Fassbender, Adolf
ID Number
PG.004116.24
catalog number
4116.24
accession number
146001

Evening

Evening by anonymous, 1937, gelatin silver print.Currently not on view
Description
Evening by anonymous, 1937, gelatin silver print.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1937
Associated Name
Manship, Paul M.
maker
Anonymous
ID Number
2013.0327.0262
catalog number
2013.0327.0262
accession number
2013.0327

Sharecropper's shack in Missouri

As part of his job with the Farm Security Administration, Mydans traveled to Missouri and captured the lodgings of a sharecropping family. Mydans' F.S.A.
Description
As part of his job with the Farm Security Administration, Mydans traveled to Missouri and captured the lodgings of a sharecropping family. Mydans' F.S.A. caption indicates that this is a photograph of a kitchen in a cabin purchased for the Lake of the Ozarks project.
Lake of the Ozarks is one of the world's largest manmade lakes. The main objective during the project was the construction of the Bagnell Dam in order to maintain a hydroelectric power plant. Hundreds of support buildings --serving as housing, a hospital, a jail, and a commissary-- also needed to be constructed to accommodate the thousands of workmen for the project's completion. The cabin pictured here may have served as lodging for one of these workers and his family.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1936-05
1936
photographer
Mydans, Carl
ID Number
2005.0228.007
accession number
2005.0228
catalog number
2005.0228.007

White Mulberry Tree

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1934-12
maker
Bucher, William F.
ID Number
2017.0037.0055
accession number
2017.0037
catalog number
2017.0037.0055

Alfred Stieglitz 1934

Gelatin silver, black and white, mounted. Portrait of photographer and gallery owner Alfred Steiglitz in suit with glasses. A Georgia O'Keefe painting is on the wall behind him. Signed and dated, pencil (recto: bottom right center).
Description (Brief)
Gelatin silver, black and white, mounted. Portrait of photographer and gallery owner Alfred Steiglitz in suit with glasses. A Georgia O'Keefe painting is on the wall behind him. Signed and dated, pencil (recto: bottom right center). Verso: Imogen Cunningham label adhered, top center.
Description
The Imogen Cunningham collection consists of thirty gelatin silver photographs, mounted, with label, signed and dated by the photographer, and three platinum prints, mounted and labeled. The subjects in the thirty gelatin silver photographs range from plants to portraiture between 1925 and 1968. The three platinum prints were made in 1912 and are representative of Cunningham’s pictorialist style. They were acquired from the photographer in 1968.
The photographs were used in a Smithsonian exhibition titled, “Women, Cameras, and Images I,” November 30, 1968-May 30, 1969, in the Hall of Photography, Museum of History and Technology. The exhibition also included thirty additional photographs lent by Imogen Cunningham, and five lent from the Library of Congress. The “Women, Cameras, and Images” exhibition was a series of five exhibitions featuring the work of female photographers: Cunningham, Betty Hahn, Gayle Smalley, Barbara Morgan, and Janine Niepce.
date made
1934
maker
Cunningham, Imogen
ID Number
PG.69.77.5
accession number
288841
catalog number
69.77.5

Tulip Tree

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1930s
maker
Tasker, Dain L.
ID Number
PG.66.65.093P3
catalog number
66.65.93P.3
accession number
264476

Vulcan and Man

Vulcan and Man by anonymous, 1937, gelatin silver print.Currently not on view
Description
Vulcan and Man by anonymous, 1937, gelatin silver print.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1937
maker
Anonymous
ID Number
2013.0327.0273
catalog number
2013.0327.0273
accession number
2013.0327

Parents of Competing Young Tenors

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1936
maker
Aigner, Lucien
ID Number
1992.0101.35
accession number
1992.0101
catalog number
1992.0101.35

Migratory worker and family

While traveling through Texas capturing images for his photo essay, Mydans focused not only on the prosperous cowboys on the range, but also on the displaced population that was still struggling to find jobs amidst a national economic crisis.Migrant workers like this man, whom My
Description
While traveling through Texas capturing images for his photo essay, Mydans focused not only on the prosperous cowboys on the range, but also on the displaced population that was still struggling to find jobs amidst a national economic crisis.
Migrant workers like this man, whom Mydans found living with his family by the side of the road near Raymondville, Texas, were called "brush-hogs." It was estimated that this type of permanent migrant worker, without a home, voting privileges, or union representation, numbered more than 3 million during the 1930s. These laborers traveled from place to place, harvesting crops that needed to be picked as soon as they ripened, hoping to earn enough money to get by.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1937
photographer
Mydans, Carl
ID Number
2005.0228.038
accession number
2005.0228
catalog number
2005.0228.038

Women in uniform marching

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1940s
ID Number
2017.0309.0066
accession number
2017.0309
catalog number
2017.0309.0066

U.S. dive bombers strike at Omura

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
ID Number
2013.0327.1123
catalog number
2013.0327.1123
accession number
2013.0327

Dr. Ernest Orlando Lawrence and Dr. Harrie S.W. Massey

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
depicted (sitter)
Lawrence, E. O.
ID Number
2013.0327.1011
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1011

Saudi Arabian Delegates at U.N. Security Conference

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
ID Number
2013.0327.0967
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.0967

Doomed

From Pictorial Artistry: The Dramatization of the Beautiful in Photography"Imagine with me!—Before dawn, a pirate ship had crept into the harbor to rob and sack the town while the peaceful villagers still slept.
Description
From Pictorial Artistry: The Dramatization of the Beautiful in Photography
"Imagine with me!—Before dawn, a pirate ship had crept into the harbor to rob and sack the town while the peaceful villagers still slept. As the pirates were busy collecting their plunder the tide went out, leaving them stranded. The villagers had their revenge when morning broke. Here in the picture we see the threatening symbolism in the formation of the clouds—and the ominous massing of the village, waking defiantly from the dark. It is as though the whole atmosphere is charged with the spirit of vengeance.
The evening before I had photographed the same ship from another angle, against a beautiful sunset. It was an entirely different mood that I captured… A graceful ship resting gently on its side, bathed in the gold of the sunset. The lyrical beauty of the scene called for quite a different title interpretation and decided that the nostalgic inference of the stranded three-master in this exquisite setting was best expressed in the title “The Last Journey”.
Composition:
Steelyard in close formation. The scene conveys a striking Drama. The turbulent sky, the blunt mass of the ship, the silhouetted church and housetops all combine to effectively portray the mood of the title, “Doomed”.
Technical Problems:
The exposure was made against the light and sun. Result: extreme contrast. Filter practically ineffective for lack of blue near the horizon in the direction of the sun. Blocking up and flattening out of clouds and lack of detail shadows was the result. Extensive reduction, work on shadow detail and brightening of the highlights in clouds which had flattened out were necessary because of the over-exposure. Strong texture was printed in to emphasize the mood.
Data:
Camera: Linhof 9x12cm
Lens: Zeiss Tessar
Stop: f.16
Filter: Dark Yellow
Film: Agfa Superpan
Exposure: 1/10 second, on tripod
Print: 14x17 Tuma Gas"
by Adolf Fassbender, 1937
Location
Currently not on view
date made
before 1937
maker
Fassbender, Adolf
ID Number
PG.004116.09
catalog number
4116.09
accession number
146001

Dr. Enrico Fermi

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1945
ID Number
2013.0327.1020
accession number
2013.0327
catalog number
2013.0327.1020

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