Amateur Photography in 19th Century Brookline

The May 6, 1882 edition of the Brookline Chronicle included a list of 33 books recently added to the collection at the Brookline Library. There were books of history, fiction, science, and travel. 

There were some how-to books, including two guides for would-be painters: A Course of Lessons in Landscape Painting in Oils and Easy Studies in Water-Color Painting.

There was also a how-to book on a relatively new and increasingly popular art form: photography.

"A Sensible Craze"

"Anyone who has undertaken to be his own photographer will tell you there is a great infatuation about it," noted a review of the book in another newspaper. 

"Hence it may be termed a craze," continued the review. "It is also a high art to be able to catch and preserve any little scene of beauty that one may chance to meet with on his summer vacation. Any true art is sensible, therefore amateur photography is a sensible craze."

A year later, the Brookline Chronicle reprinted a lengthy article on "Amateur Photography" from the New York paper The Hour. "The amusement and services that may be had at the cost of a small, cheap photographic outfit are almost numberless," it said.

"Expression, which is the life of a portrait, cannot always be assumed to order in a studio, except by persons whose features are under unusual control, while children's pictures are generally of the variety known as 'wooden.' 

 

"But at home every expression of countenance may be seen and caught. Poses that do not come willingly amid unfamiliar surroundings and before strange observers, succeed each other rapidly in the unrestraining atmosphere of the family circle." 

Technical Innovation and the Boston Camera Club

The growth of amateur photography was spurred by the technical innovations of George Eastman and Henry Strong in Rochester, NY, beginning with dry emulsion glass plates in 1880. Camera clubs and photographic societies, taking advantage of the new, less complicated method of developing photos, sprung up across the country, including in Boston.

The Boston Society of Amateur Photographers was formed in 1881. Five years later, the name was changed to the Boston Camera Club.

Click on image for larger view

Among the early members of the club were several Brookline men, including James Codman (one of the founders), William Hovey, George E. Cabot, John Hubbard, Robert Amory, Percival Lowell, and Edward Philbrick.

This 1886 photo of Cora Codman, age 12, may have been taken by her father, James, one of the founders of the Boston Camera Club. It is one of more than 40 photos of Brookline and Boston children in an album in the collection of the Brookline Historical Society.

The Boston Camera Club is the second-oldest continuously extant amateur camera club in the United States. Headquartered in Boston for most of its existence, it was based in Brookline from 1980 to 2023 before returning to Boston.

The Kodak Camera and the Brookline Camera Club

The next big innovation from Eastman in Rochester -- the Kodak camera -- had a big impact on the growth of amateur photography, including in Brookline. . 

Kodak advertisement, Rochester, NY, August 1888

The Kodak did away with glass plates altogether. The photographer could shoot multiple images without reloading, then send the film to Rochester to be developed, with the finished images shipped back to the sender when they were done.

In 1891, the Brookline Chronicle ran an article about effective advertising, reprinted from the Milwaukee Journal. One of the most effective ad slogans the article cited was Kodal's "You press the button, we do the rest."

1889 Kodak advertisement

In October 1889, it was announced in the Chronicle that a meeting would be held to form a Brookline Camera Club.

"It is desired that all interested in this most fascinating art be present. The object of the club is for social intercourse and the interchange of views, and there are a sufficient number of photographers here to make it a success."

"Amateurs of both sexes are invited," reported the Brookline Chronicle, adding that "the club's constitution provides that "two of the members of the executive committee shall be ladies."  The club was also looking into setting up a darkroom and studio for its members. The club held exhibitions, discussions, and other events in town.

C.A. Chandler, who wrote about photography for the Boston Globe, had noted the creation of the Brookline club in his column.  But he was not a fan of amateur photography.

 

"'Amateur' in its original meaning," he wrote, "is 'a lover of,' and as applied to photography would convey that the man to whom it was applied was an enthusiastic lover of, and consequently a skilled adept in, the art.

 

"Now," he continued, "the meaning is degraded, and the man who buys a detective [a generic name for some 1880s box cameras], presses the button, and sends his paper or plates to be developed and printed from, is an amateur. He knows no more of the art than does the organ-blower [the person who pumped the air into pre-electric pipe organs] know of music."

 
Chandler's criticism notwithstanding, amateur photography continued to grow in popularity with men and women, young and old, including in Brookline, even as professionals came to town.

Brookline Chronicle brief, January 4, 1890

Next up: Professional photographers in Brookline into the 20th century. See also the first article in this series: Brookline Photographers: The Early Years.

Brookline Photographers: The Early Years

In the early days of photography, Brookline people who wanted to have their picture taken traveled into Boston. For example, Mary Wild, in an 1856 entry in her diary, described going with her daughter Laura to have daguerreotypes taken at the studio of J.A. Whipple on Washington Street.

This advertisement for John A. Whipple's daguerreotypes was in the Boston Directory published in 1848, eight years before Mary Wild and her daughter had their pictures taken there. (Click image for larger view.)

By the 1870s, Boston photographers were advertising their services to Brookline's growing population in town directories. 

Cambridge photographers got in on the act as well. In 1887, H. William Tupper, "manager and photographer" at Pach's Studio near Harvard Square, advertised his services in the Brookline Blue Book, an annual directory, noting that his studio was "just a short ride in the horsecar" from Brookline.

Boston-area photographers also came to Brookline to take or to show pictures. The famed photographer J.W. Black -- he had taken photographs before the Civil War of John Brown and Walt Whitman as well as the first aerial photograph in the United States -- had come to town in 1872 to present a display of stereopticon images at Town Hall. 

In 1882, a photographer named F.J. Aiken had set up temporarily in town, offering to take photos of local people.

This notice appeared in the Brookline Chronicle on October 7, 1882. Seven weeks later, the paper noted that "The daguerreotype saloon on High street has been pronounced a nuisance and its removal ordered." This was presumably Aiken's operation, though there is no further information available.

First Brookline Photo Studio

Finally, in May 1888 a short item in the Brookline Chronicle announced that the town would soon have its own photo studio.

"Mr. W.H. Partridge, the well known photographer...will soon erect a studio on Harvard street opposite the Baptist church. Mr. Partridge is one of the foremost artists in the country and he will doubtless be liberally patronized by the residents of this town."

Partridge's studio on Harvard Street is highlighted on this portion of an 1893 map

William H. Partridge was born in Virginia in 1858, in a part of the state that became West Virginia during the Civil War.  The family moved to Massachusetts, where William's father, Asa, became a photographer. (He is one of the Boston photographers whose 1870s advertisements in Brookline are shown above)

William, with his older brother Edward and later on his own, continued in the photo business in Boston after their father moved to California. "Mr. Partridge's work stands second to none in the country," wrote the Chronicle in September, noting that the studio

"is supplied with the best apparatus and a large variety of desirable accessories. Every kind of photographic work will be artistically executed, from the smallest locket picture to a life-size portrait. If desired, pictures will be taken at residences."

Partridge ad in the 1889 Brookline directory

Partridge hired others to manage the Brookline branch of his business, starting with a woman named A.E. Perkins who, according to the Chronicle, "has had an extended experience with leading photographers in Massachusetts, and has been very successful with children's pictures."

Enter A.T. Barraud

In 1890, Partridge hired a Canadian landscape and marine painter and photographer named Alfred Thomas Barraud to manage the Brookline studio. (Barraud's father, Francis, was an English painter best known for the 1898 painting His Master's Voice which was used as the longtime symbol of the Victor Talking Machine Company, later RCA Victor.) 

A.T. Barraud would remain in charge of the Brookline studio for more than 30 years, until his death in 1925. 

Alfred and Catherine Barraud, Boston Globe, July 25, 1922

The April 1906 issue of Wilson's Photographic Magazine featured six photos of children taken by Barraud at the Partridge studio in Brookline. (Two of the photos are below. See larger versions of all of the photos here.)

The 1880s were also a significant decade for the growth of amateur photography in Brookline (and elsewhere). That aspect of local photographic history will be the subject of my next post.