Edward B. Watson personal photographs
Call Number
Dates
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
The collection consists of one linear foot of black-and-white and color photographic negatives dating from 1914 to 1983, with the bulk dating from approximately 1940 to 1970. Subjects of the negatives include Watson, his family and friends, and buildings and scenes viewed during his extensive travels in Europe and the United States.
Biographical note
Edward B. Watson (1906-1991) attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1929 with a bachelor of arts degree. Watson then attended Columbia University School of Architecture and graduated with a masters degree in 1933. He coauthored or contributed to several books on architecture and transportation in New York City and Brooklyn including Brooklyn Trolleys, The Brooklyn Elevated, New York in Aerial Views: 68 Photographs, and New York Then and Now: 83 Manhattan Sites Photographed in the Past and Present. He also contributed to many other publications pertaining to public transportation. Watson served as director of the Long Island Historical Society (now Brooklyn Historical Society) and was the president of the Branford Electric Railway for twenty two years. His other interests included opera, theater, and piano.
Source: Greller, James Clifford and Edward B. Watson. Brooklyn Trolleys. Hicksville, N.Y.: N.J. International, 1986.
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of one linear foot of black-and-white and color photographic negatives dating from 1914 to 1983, with the bulk dating from approximately 1940 to 1970. Most of the images were taken by Edward B. Watson; however, the images taken before 1906 or in which he appears were by unknown photographers. Subjects of the negatives include Watson, his family and friends, and buildings and scenes viewed during his extensive travels. International destinations represented in the collection include England, France, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Canada, and Mexico. Domestic locations represented include New York, Virginia, Vermont, Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Also included are images dating from 1943 to 1944, during Watson's World War II service.
Subjects
Conditions Governing Access
Open to users without restriction. Please note: collection is made up of negatives and a light box, loupe, and gloves will facilitate review.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright for unpublished works is protected until 70 years after the death of the creator, who died in 1991.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); Edward B. Watson personal photographs, 2016.016, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was originally bequeathed to Brooklyn Historical Society, who donated the photographs to the New York Transit Museum (NYTM) in December 2009. Materials deemed to be out of scope by NYTM were transferred back to BHS in 2016.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Minimally processed to the collection level. Negatives were removed by the processing archivist from the original envelopes used by Edward B. Watson and placed in archival envelopes. The archival envelopes were numbered by the processing archivist to reflect the order of the original envelopes in the box comprising the collection that was returned by the New York Transit Museum in 2016. In cases in which an original envelope contained a large number of negatives, the processing archivist put the negatives into multiple archival envelopes, which were numbered to reflect the fact that the negatives came from one original envelope (e.g., "1a, 1b, 1c"). The original envelopes were attached to the corresponding archival envelopes using paperclips in order to preserve the information written upon them about the negatives by Edward B. Watson.
