Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia. 1876.
Title
Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia. 1876
Description
Sample album containing half stereographic prints by the commissioned photographic company of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Contains images of the exhibition that celebrated the centennial of the United States through an international exhibition of industry, agriculture, and art. Photographs depict the installation of exhibits; exhibition grounds including bird's eye views, scenes in Lansdowne Valley and along exhibition avenues, rail lines, fountains, statuary, and outdoor horticultural displays; interiors and exteriors of exhibition buildings, including Agricultural Hall, Horticultural Hall, Main Exhibition Building, Memorial Hall, the United States Government Building, states' buildings, the Women's Pavilion and the portico of the building of the Centennial Photographic Co.; views of special exhibits and dioramas, including Hunter's Camp, the first locomotive, and "The Dying Elk"; displays showing the wares, products, or cultural artifacts of specific companies and countries, including Peruvian mummies; and displays of art particularly of Italian statuary. Many of the exterior views and some of the interior include fair visitors and personnel., Exhibitors depicted include American Book Association; American Steamship Co.; American Watch Co.; Clinton Wire Cloth Company; Farmers Friend Manufacturing Co.; J. F. Tyrell & Co.; J. & P. Coats; Kingsford Starch Co.; Mason's Blacking; Midnight Yarn Co.; Mrs. Maxwell (taxidermy); Pacific Guano Co.; Shomacker Piano Mftg. Co.; and Singer Sewing Machine., Architects of the main buildings include Herman Schwartzmann, Henry Pettit, Joseph M. Wilson, and James H. Windrim. Architects of the states buildings include George A. Frederick, Carl Pfeiffer, E. L. Rice, Jr., Croff & Camp, and Heard & Sons., Brown leather and maroon cloth binding with gilt., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Album disbound and reformatted for conservation., Over 200 duplicate images held in the Raymond Holstein Stereograph Collection. See Holstein stereo - Centennial Photographic Company., Catalogue of the Centennial Photographic Company's Views of the International Exhibition, 1876. LCP Rare Books Am1876Cen (51856.D.10)., Ongoing series of articles about photographing the exhibition by John L. Gihon, a photographer employed by the Company, appeared in Philadelphia Photographer throughout 1877 under the title "Rambling Remarks Resumed.", Original photographs by the Centennial Photographic Company appeared as the frontispieces for Philadelphia Photographer in March, April, July and November 1877. P.8965.70f showing the statue "Cupid" illustrated the November 1877 issue., LCP AR [Annual Report] 1983 p.42-43., The Centennial Photographic Company was granted exclusive rights to photograph the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Company officers included President William Notman, a prominent Canadian photographer; Vice President and Proprietor Washington Irving Adams, representative of the Scovill Manufacturing Company which supplied equipment for large-scale production to the company; Superintendent & Treasurer and Proprietor Edward L. Wilson, publisher of Philadelphia Photographer; and Art Superintendent John Arthur Fraser, Notman's partner in the Toronto photographic firm of Notman & Fraser. Employing over 400 men and women, the Company produced over 3,000 views of the exhibition, and portraits of officials and exhibitors.
Creator
Centennial Photographic Co.
Date
c1876
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.8965]
Scenery on the Pennsylvania Railroad
Title
Scenery on the Pennsylvania Railroad
Description
Album of photographs documenting the Philadelphia, Middle, and Pittsburgh divisions of the Pennsylvania Railroad, incorporated in 1846. The consolidated company sought to build a trunk route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh through the Allegheny mountains in order to compete with the Erie Canal for freight traffic. In 1854, rail passage through the Alleghenies via the "Horse Shoe Curve" was achieved and spurred the establishment and growth of the several towns depicted along the route., Photographs depict stations, sites, landmarks, and landscape and townscape views along the Pennsylvania Railroad. Titles include No. 1 Ardmore Station ; No. 2 Bryn Mawr Station; No. 3 Bridge at Conways at Conewago; No. 5 Mount Union; No. 6 Susquehanna Bridge at Rockville (i.e., first bridge replaced in 1877); No. 7 Track Tank; No. 8 Jack Narrows; No. 9 Triple Track; No. 12 Bryn Mawr Hotel; No. 13 Coatesville Bridge; No. 16 Powers Run Allegheny River; No. 21 Sample track near Harmersville; No. 25 East from Harmersville; No. 26 Butler; No. 29 On the Kiskimenitus below Leechburg; No. 36 Greensburg near Huffs; No. 39 Hawkins; No. 40 West of Derry; No. 41 East of Morgan; No. 42 West of Beattys Station; No. 43 Monastery West of Latrobe; No. 44 1 1/2 miles East of S. W. Penna.; No. 46 Westmoreland Coal Co.; No. 47 Braddocks, Port Perry and Steel Works; No. 48 Westmoreland Landscape; No. 49 Stewarts Sample Track; No. 50 Section of Y at Walls; No. 51 Greensburg Station ; No. 53 West of Pack Saddle; No. 55 Lockport; No. 56 Below Conemaugh Furnace; No. 58 Cresson (Panorama); No. 61 Allegheny Tunnel , Galitzen; No. 64 Soap Fat; No. 57 Cresson (Panorama); No. 59 Kittanning from McGarveys; No. 65 Pulpit Rock; No. 67 From McKees Gap; No. 76 Bellefonte; No. 78 Mill Hall; No. 79 Birmingham; No. 80 Union Furnace and Station ; No. 81 Spring Creek; No. 82 Allegheny Tunnel; No. 83 Tyrone and Clearfield; No. 84 Grade on the Tyrone and Clearfield; No. 85 Bellefonte Gap;, No. 86 Mule Shoe and Deep Fill; No. 88 Pack Saddle East; No. 90 Logan House, Altoona, Pa.; No. 96 Jack Narrows, Mapleton; No. 97 Entrance to Jack Narrows; No. 98 Reservoir; No. 99 Bedford Springs; No. 100 View from Bedford Springs; No. 101 Bedford from Wickershams; No. 102 Below Bedford, Devils Backbone; No. 103 Bedford; No. 104 McVeytown Station; No. 105 Mount Dallas; No. 106 Mapleton; No. 107 Huntington; No. 108 Tuscarora Valley; No. 109 Sentinel Rock; No. 110 Tyrone Forges; No. 113 Standard Track, Lewistown Narrows; No. 114 From Centre of Susquehanna Bridge; No. 115 Terrace Mountain, Mill Creek; No. 116 From West End of Susquehanna Bridge; No. 117 Upper Mann’s; No. 118 Lewistown Narrows; No. 119 Susquehanna Bridge; No. 121 Standard Track at Newport; No. 123 Across the Allegheny; No. 127 General View of Bryn Mawr; No. 124 Saltzburg; No. 130 Bryn Mawr; No. 131 Bryn Mawr; No. 138 Irwin Station; No. 139 Sample Track, Wynnewood Station ; No. 140 Haverford College; No. 142 Haverford College Station; No. 147 Bridge at Columbia [Wrightsburg?] Pa.; No. 148 Wayne Station; No. 151 Terminus at Delaware City; No. 154 Harrisburg from Fort Washington ; No. 150 Chiques (i.e., Chickie’s Rock); No. 153 Henry Clay, Chiques and Marietta; No. 158 Landenburg; No. 159 Columbia Tunnel; and No. 162 Louella Residence of J. Henry Askin., Photographs include railroad tracks, locomotives and railcars, railroad equipment, bridges, tunnels, rock formations, mountains, passes, mills, furnaces, coal and steel works, hotels, Victorian-style residences, wooden dwellings and sheds, canal houses and canals, telegraph poles, townscape, farmsteads, marshland, rivers, and wooden fences. Several images, particularly views of stations, also depict posed figures, including an African American man at the Haverford College Station (No. 142). Details in other photographs include rail tracks with a water trough (No. 7); amateurishly hand-painted advertising text on a wood fence (No. 36); the "Exchange Hotel" near the Allegheny Tunnel in Galitzen (No. 61); men seated on the cow catcher of a partially visible locomotive at the grade on the Tyrone and Clearfield (No. 84); a gazebo-style pavilion at Bedford Springs (No. 199); oil tanks and drums (No. 123); the Pennsylvania Gas Coal Co. Office, a pedestrian bridge crossing over a creek, and the “Tom Smith Peanut Man” shed near Irwin Station (No. 138); the “Columbia” barge (No. 147); a "Water-Line of Boston" sailing vessel at the terminus at Delaware City (No. 151); the Martin Landenburger mill in Landenburg (No. 158); and the greenhouse attached to the residence on the Louella estate in Wayne (No. 162)., Photographer’s imprint inscribed in negative of several of the photographs: F. Gutekunst, Philada. or F. Gutekunst, Photogr., Philada., Date inferred from publication date of stereographs with similar content by the photographer. See stereo - Gutekunst - Views [P.9058.1-.142]., Photograph No. 4, 10-11, 14-15, 17-20, 22-24, 27-28, 30-35, 37-38, 45, 52, 54, 60, 62-63, 66, 68-75, 77, 87, 89, 91-95, 112, 120, 122, 125-126, 128-129, 132-137, 141, 143-146, 149, 152, 155-157, 160-161 not included in album., Inscribed in pencil upper right corner on mount of photograph No. 1: 40 guards., Inscribed in pencil below image on mount of photograph No. 1: about 1876., Inscription in pencil below title on mount of photograph No. 147: Wrightsburg. “Columbia” in title circled., See Gutekunst (Pennsylvania Railroad) research file., Gift of the Greer family in memory of David St. John Greer who after starting as a co-op student at Drexel University spent his working life with the Pennsylvania Railroad with the exception of a period of service with the U.S. Navy during WWII., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2014, p. 49-50., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Gutekunst, a prominent Philadelphia photographer, published a series of Pennsylvania Railroad views stereographs in 1875.
Creator
Gutekunst, Frederick, 1831-1917, photographer
Date
[ca. 1875]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2014.74]