Photograph album of Philadelphia and vicinity
Title
Photograph album of Philadelphia and vicinity
Description
Photograph album compiled by Philadelphia photographer Robert Newell containing views by the photographer and his peers, including F. De. B. Richards. Images depict major city landmarks and views of Fairmount Park, including benevolent, educational and financial institutions, historic sites, residences, churches and meetinghouses, bridges, and hotels and taverns. Sites documented include Broad Street (Civil War) Hospital; Foster Home (Twenty-Fourth and Poplar); Germantown Academy; the former bookstore and printing office of William Young (200-204 Chestnut); Landing Avenue during alterations (East bank of Schuylkill); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (old and new); Carpenters Hall; Independence Hall; Academy of Music; Merchants' Exchange; Girard, Farmers', Mechanics', Pennsylvania, and Fourth National banks; Bartram's, Keene, and Rittenhouse mansions; Woodford residence (Fairmount Park); Washington's residence (Germantown); Womrath property, "where the first 4th of July" was celebrated" (4216 Frankford); Oldest house in Lansdown" (West Fairmount Park); Old Farm house (Broad and Oxford); St. Judes Episcopal church; Fairmount Water Works, and boat houses and ice houses along the Schuylkill; Cedar Hill, Laurel Hill and Woodlands cemeteries; Columbia, Old Callowhill Street, Girard Avenue, and New York Connecting Railroad bridges; Continental, Valley Green, Maple Spring, Markley's and Cole's hotels; and "Punch Bowl" (2100 Broad), "Abbey" (Hunting Park and Wissahickon Aves), Old Buck? (Lancaster Pike) and Old Grey's Ferry taverns., Images also include neighboring and tenant businesses, including Charles Oakford & Sons, hats, Continental Hotel (29a), John C. Clark & Sons, stationers and printers, L. S. Boyer & Co., coal, and a "Shaving and Hair Cutting Emporium," on 228-232 South Third (29b), and a real estate office, 524 Arch (45b); street vendors (74b); and broadsides displayed on buildings and walls (49b & 79b). Several of the Fairmount views also show visitors, patrons to refreshment saloons, and park guards. Scrapbook also contains a small number of photographic reproductions of engravings, including one of Masonic Hall (700 block Chestnut) and images reproduced in R. Newell & Son's "Old Landmark" series (1876), including Old Swede's Church, Friends Almshouse, and Robert Morris Hotel., Title supplied by cataloger., Some of the contents identified by inscriptions on album pages. Inscriptions annotated and corrected in different hand., Texts from R. Newell & Son's "Old Landmark" series tipped in between album pages., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Images from album reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006)., Album reformatted for conservation. Housed in two phase boxes, including binding and index., Robert Newell, the prominent Philadelphia commercial photographer operated a studio from circa 1855 to 1900. His firm, which originally specialized in portraiture, later focused on "Artistic Business and Landscape Photographs" and was reorganized as R. Newell & Son circa 1872. In 1876, the studio (Robert and Henry Newell) issued a series of six viewbooks under the title "Old Landmarks & Relics of Philadelphia." Newell also produced series of stereographs during the 1860s depicting commercial streets, the volunteer fire companies, and views of Fairmount Park and local cemeteries, as well as invented acid proof photographic ware in the 1870s.
Creator
Newell, Robert, 1822-1897
Date
ca. 1860-ca. 1900
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.9062]