- Eugene L. Armbruster (1865-1943) was born in Baden-Baden, Germany, and came to the United States in 1882. His first job was with H. Henkel Cigar Box Manufacturing Company, where he continued to work until his retirement in 1920. He lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with his wife and two children, Julia and Eugene Jr. Armbruster took photographs beginning in the late 19th century, but the majority of his work is from the 1910s and 1920s. Around the time of his retirement, Armbruster became interested in local history and began to photograph his environs in earnest, specifically the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. He took thousands of photographs of historic houses, churches, streetscapes, and buildings throughout New York City and Long Island. For a detailed finding aid to the collection, see http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/armbruster/.
- The Jessie Tarbox Beals Collection contains 420 black and white photographs, circa 1900-1940, primarily of New York City and its inhabitants. It also includes postcards, as well as larger prints, of bohemian Greenwich Village between 1905 and 1920. Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870-1942), a school teacher who taught herself photography, joined the Buffalo Courier staff in 1902 and became known as the first woman press photographer. She moved to New York City in 1905 and remained there for most of her career, leaving only to settle in southern California and Chicago for a few years during the late 1920s and early 1930s. She practiced many types of commercial photography with the vigor and speed associated with news work. Her body of work includes portraits, garden photography, city street scenes, fashion photography, and documentary photography.
- 2,130 photographs, including glass plate negatives, cellulose nitrate negatives, and prints, produced by Fritz E. Bjorkman and most likely collected by Herman Blumenthal for visual research. The photographs depict a large number of places, including New York, Ohio, Maryland, Florida, California, the U.S. Southwest, and Mexico. One particular focus of the collection is parades, including photographs of an Armistice Day parade, a Liberty Day parade, parades commemorating the second and third Liberty Loans, and a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Along with many family photographs, the collection also includes photographs of monuments, memorials, buildings, canals, houses, and battleships. Herman A. Blumenthal worked as an art director and production designer for the 20th Century Fox film studio in Beverly Hills, California and received Academy Awards for his work in “Cleopatra” (1963) and “Hello, Dolly!” (1969). His other film work includes “The Three Faces of Eve” (1957), “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (1959), “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961), “What’s Up , Doc?” (1972), and “Westworld” (1973). Fritz E. Bjorkman was an electrical engineer born in Sweden who emigrated to the United States with his parents.
- Robert Louis Bracklow (1849-1919) was an amateur photographer and stationer. He was an active member of the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York (later the Camera Club), where he exhibited photographs with fellow amateur Richard H. Lawrence and with Alfred Stieglitz. This digital collection includes 2,084 glass plate negatives from the New-York Historical Society's Robert L. Bracklow Photograph Collection, which contains images of New York City, its immediate environs, and towns throughout New England from 1882 to 1918. Bracklow’s photographs often show elements of Manhattan in flux: old houses, new skyscrapers, and buildings in different stages of construction. The digitization of this collection was funded in part by a grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council.
- The Lower East Side Photograph Collection spans the period from March to June 1901 and contains 63 gelatin silver photographs of buildings, on and around Delancey Street, before they were demolished during construction of the Williamsburg Bridge. The photographs show the markets, shops, saloons, and other businesses in the area; signs for many of these are in Yiddish. The images also capture the residents of the neighborhood, including several children, on the street and peering from windows of tenements. This neighborhood survey provides a unique view of life in this predominately Jewish neighborhood. All but two of the photographs are by N.L. Coe. The remainder are by A.J. Drummond.
- George R. Fardon (1806-1886) was an English photographer who operated in San Francisco, CA and Victoria, BC. The album consists of thirty images of San Francisco in 1856, published as a portfolio by Herre & Bauer. The San Francisco album is considered the first published compilation of photographs of any American city and the major work of Fardon’s career. This is one of ten known variant copies.
- This digital collection includes 3,417 cellulose nitrate photographic negatives from the Norvin H. Green Collection of Elevated Railroad Photographs. Norvin Hewitt Green (1894-1955) was a business executive, civic leader, railroad enthusiast, and trustee of The New-York Historical Society who compiled a photographic record of New York elevated railroads that focuses on the dismantling of most of the lines between 1939 and1941, hiring the firm of H.F. Dutcher to document the demolition in almost 4,000 views. Views show the changes block by block as the heavy skeletal structure and stations were removed along Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue line (1939), Ninth Avenue line (1940), and Second Avenue line (1941); and along Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue, Fulton Street, and Sands Street lines (1941).
- Collection of 133 silver gelatin photographs of Manhattan, approximately 1938 to 1960, taken by amateur photographer Arthur W. Grumbine. Part of the collection consists of street scenes and views of individual buildings taken in various neighborhoods around the city from the 1930s through the 1960s, and include images of street vendors, construction sites, signs and storefronts, building interiors, aerial and riverfront views, Times Square, Washington Square, South Street, and vignettes depicting life on the streets of Manhattan's Little Italy, Chinatown, and Lower East Side. The remainder of the collection consists principally of photographs of subjects such as elevated trains, ferries and riverboats, horse drawn carts, and a single image of a New York City streetcar. Also included are a handful of photographs of miscellaneous and unidentified subjects, as well as two photo prints of pen and ink drawings executed and photographed by Grumbine.
- The George P. Hall & Son collection consists of 1,649 photographic prints and negatives. The large-format views provide clear, extremely detailed and flattering depictions of a variety of subjects, including Manhattan's early skyscrapers, hotels and theater exteriors, harbor activity, and downtown streets, as well as Brooklyn business areas and resorts. George P. Hall & Son photographed the Battery skyline repeatedly from the 1880s through the 1910s, documenting the dramatic changes that occurred as New York progressed from a lowrise to a highrise city. George P. Hall (1832-1900) started his commercial photography business at 78 Fulton Street around 1875, and was officially joined by his son James S. Hall in 1886 when firm took the name George P. Hall & Son. After his father's death, James continued to run the business until about 1914.
- William Davis Hassler (1877-1921) worked as a commercial photographer in New York City from 1909 to his death in 1921. He shot a wide range of subjects for a variety of clients, from magazines to construction companies, postal card publishers, and private commissions. Regular work came from the real estate auction house Joseph P. Day, for whom Hassler documented properties all over the five boroughs of New York City as well as Westchester County, Long Island, and New Jersey; and from the United Electric Light & Power Company, who he provided with images of power plants, illuminated signs, and product shots of electrical appliances of all kinds. Hassler was also an avid photographer of his family and friends, including his sister Harriet E. Hassler, who was head of the children’s department of the Queens Borough Public Library, his wife Ethel Magaw Hassler, and his son William Gray Hassler.
- This collection consists of 43 photographs, mounted on 44 loose album pages of gray paper (one photograph is missing), of New York City newsboys (or "newsies"), probably taken by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Committee circa 1908-1912. All photographs are captioned with the subject's name, age, address, school, whether they had a badge or not, and the location of the photograph.
- The Frank M. Ingalls Photograph Collection includes 1611 photographic prints and negatives of New York City and vicinity. Frank M. Ingalls (1862-1956) wrote that he always carried a small camera with him, even when it rained, to be sure he never missed an unexpected opportunity. The collection includes photographs taken around lower Manhattan and Queens. The majority of the views are of skyscraper and building construction and street scenes. The construction of the Singer Building and the Metropolitan Life Building are particularly well documented. Other well-represented structures include bridges, statues, and monuments. Also present in great numbers are images of different types of ships and boats in the waters around Manhattan, such as steamships, yachts, tugboats, ferryboats, and excursion boats. The photographs document an era in which the cityscape was rapidly being transformed by an upswing in the cycle of demolition and construction that has characterized so much of the history of New York City.
- Collection of 108 photographs taken circa 1890-1899 by J.S Johnston, a New York City based marine and scenic photographer, including original glass negatives and modern gelatin silver photographic prints. The photographs are pleasant depictions of New York City landmarks, as well as Niagara Falls, Boston, the Hudson River valley, Puerto Rico, Montreal, and Quebec. There are also some images of shipping, and of Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) and his Wild West Show.
- The Burr McIntosh Photograph Collection consists of 596 glass plate negatives and 3,822 photographic prints dating from 1898 to 1910. Burr McIntosh (1862-1942) distinguished himself in many careers, including those of actor, reporter, publisher, lecturer, cinematographer, and radio pioneer, as well as photographer. While many of these endeavors were short-lived, they gained him prestige and popularity among the stylish set, including prominent figures in the arts, society, and politics, many of whom were his friends and acquaintances. Most of the photographs are celebrity portraits from the first decade of the twentieth century. The collection also depicts society and sporting events, and contains 41 views of Cuba taken around the time of the Spanish-American War, as well as over 80 photographs documenting William Howard Taft’s good will trip to the Philippines in 1905. The digitization of the photographic prints in this collection was funded by a grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council.
- The Harris Pierce Photograph Collection spans the period from 1888-1900 and contains 300 gelatin silver photographs of residences and businesses during the grading and improvement of streets in the Bronx. Little is known about Harris Pierce, but his stamp appears on the verso of the photographs and gives his address as 1921 Oostdorp Ave and his profession as 'Photographer'. Trow's New York City Directory lists his profession from 1883-1908 as 'Stenographer' at various addresses on Nassau Street, with his home in the West Farms area of the Bronx. The photographs appear to have been made as evidence in supporting the cases of claimants filing for damages against the city. They include views of the construction of sewers, construction sites, street improvements and grading, residences, vegetable gardens, children, churches, and businesses such as grocery stores, brewers and liquor stores, bakers, barbers, plumbers, and real estate offices. The photographs also include views of the New York Central Harlem Line and train stations such as the Tremont Station, social clubs such as the Suburban Club, the Artistic Bronze Co., the American Pie Baking Co., and stables and feed stores. Gift of Herbert Berger-Hershkowitz, 6 July 2007; gift of Leo Hershkowitz, 2008.
- The collection contains 61 glass negatives of buildings, parks, events and portraits in New York City and state. Also included are three albumen prints of the steamboat Harlem and an unidentified residence. The collection was donated by Elizabeth Ransom to the New-York Historical Society, but other than her name, nothing else is known about her or her connection to the negatives. The photographer is unidentified.
- This collection of 476 photographs by William J. Roege (1893-1970) includes film and glass plate negatives taken between 1910 and 1937, and contact prints made between 1968 and 1970 by Klein Brothers Studio, New York, from oversize glass negatives. The collection consists primarily of views of popular New York City buildings, streets, and businesses produced by Roege while he was employed by commercial photography firms, including American Studio and Boyette. Typical views show Times Square and Manhattan hotels in the 1910s, Columbus Circle in 1918, and upper Fifth Avenue residences in the 1920s. The photographs also depict saloons on Chatham Square in the Bowery, German ocean liners interned in New Jersey during World War I, and several rooftop views of Manhattan and the Hudson and East Rivers.
- The collection consists of 25 gelatin silver photographic prints, 11 x 14 inches, by photographer Harold Roth, capturing New York street life between 1937 and 1950. The photographs show Roth's attention to light and composition, and range from a group of children playing in the spray of an open fire hydrant in the waning sunlight to a view of foot traffic in Madison Square Park against the hazy backdrop of the Flatiron Building. Other views include the interior of Grand Central Terminal, a hot dog vendor at work, the Parachute Jump at Coney Island, and an aerial view of a stickball game. The photographs in this collection were printed by Harold Roth from his vintage negatives between 1991 and 1995. Prints are numbered, captioned, and in most cases signed on the verso by Roth.
- The James Reuel Smith Springs and Wells Photograph Collection includes 852 glass negatives, acetate negatives, and photographic prints relating to his book "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century," published by the New-York Historical Society in 1938. Smith was born in 1852 in Skaneateles, New York. Family money enabled him to actively pursue his hobby of photographing and investigating springs and wells. He spent much of the years 1897 to 1901 bicycling around northern Manhattan and the Bronx looking for them and photographing them. His enthusiasm was well-matched with his photographic eye and his meticulous note-taking on the locations and conditions of the springs and wells he saw. He died in 1935.
- 4,670 images by George Ehler Stonebridge (d. 1941), an amateur photographer who lived and worked in the Bronx, New York. The photographs document both everyday life and special events such as parades, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning decades of the twentieth century. The collection includes views of Manhattan sights as wells as Bronx parks, the Croton Dam strike, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the funeral of General Franz Sigel, the Dewey Naval and Land Parade, Niagara Falls, the May Walk (1898-1899), the Cycle Parade (1897-1898), wrecks, fires, the Sportsman's Show, the Stevens airship, baseball teams in action, scenes from Garrison, N.Y., and grim photographs of the victims of the "General Slocum" steamboat disaster.
- H.N. Tiemann (1863-1957) was the proprietor of a Manhattan-based commercial photography company, H.N Tiemann & Co., which photographed New York locations and events for publication and general sale. This collection of black and white negatives, circa 1880-1916, documents Manhattan buildings, bridges, churches, hotels, civic celebrations, and fashionable street scenes. Among heavily represented subjects are views of the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration, the Queensboro Bridge, the Croton Reservoir, the Flatiron Building, the American Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Terminal, Madison Square Garden and Union Square. There are also exterior views of residences, including those of A.T. Stewart, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Gouverneur Morris, Jr.
- The collection contains 403 photographic negatives produced circa 1920-1980 (bulk 1920-1950) by commercial photographers on behalf of The Boys’ Club of New York ("BCNY"). The majority depict young BCNY members engaged in a variety of activities, either at the club’s Tompkins Square Building (later renamed Harriman Clubhouse) or at the William Carey Camp in Jamesport, New York. Many of the photographs were published in annual reports, where they served to promote the organization’s work.
- The 904 glass plate and film negatives in this collection were taken by Drucker & Baltes for the General Outdoor Advertising Company, a billboard company that was formed in 1925 through the merger of the Fulton Group and Thomas Cusack Company. The photographs record the advertisers who bought billboard space at thirteen sites in Manhattan and two sites in the Bronx. The views focus on signs but also show surrounding buildings, elevated railroads, and street activity at such heavily traveled intersections as Broadway and Seventh Avenue (Times Square), Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, Sixth Avenue at 27th Street, Eight Avenue at 110th Street, 125th Street in Harlem, and Third Avenue at 166th Street in the Bronx. The same sites appear repeatedly, sometimes monthly, during the 1920s and into the Great Depression. The photographs reveal changes in both the neighborhoods and in the advertising for many products, among them Chesterfield cigarettes, Wrigley's chewing gum, and Pepsodent toothpaste.
- The extensive photograph collections in the New-York Historical Society Library's Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections are particularly strong in portraits and documentary images of New York-area buildings and street scenes from 1839 to 1945, although contemporary photography continues to be collected. Both professional and amateur photographers (many unidentified) are represented. The selection of 50 images in this digital collection focuses on twentieth-century photographs that were chosen especially for their artistic merit, featuring the work of Jessie Tarbox Beals, Irving Browning, Arthur D. Chapman, Bruce Davidson, Arnold Eagle, Andreas Feininger, Raymond Germann, Bernard Gotfryd, Charles Gilbert Hine, Frederick Kelly, Rebecca Lepkoff, Chris Mackey, Ruth Orkin, Harold Roth, Kenneth Siegel, and Erika Stone.