Series II: Lighthouses

Series II dates from about 1868 to 1938 and includes primarily undated mounted albumen and silver gelatin photographic prints of lighthouses, towers, and other components of light stations. Photographs are arranged in three subseries: American Lighthouses, Foreign and U.S. Territorial Lighthouses, and Unidentified Lighthouses. Thereunder photographs are arranged alphabetically by state (or country) and official name. Oversize materials have been filed in box 7. Folder 13 contains an alphabetical index (which probably was received with the collection) to fifty-two lighthouse photographs, only some of which are in this collection.

Most American light stations represented are located along the eastern seaboard of the United States, between Maine and South Carolina. Among these are a group of about thirty mounted photographs of lighthouses located in Maine and Massachusetts which were taken by the Halliday Historic Photograph Co.; these photographs were a gift of the library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Halliday was a Boston firm which produced architectural and scenic views for commercial sale from the 1890s through the 1930s. Most of the Halliday photographs bear captions and plate numbers printed into the photographs; the verso of each has been labeled with "Halliday," the plate number, and a stamp from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other photographs represent lighthouses in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

The majority of the photographs in this series are general views of light stations or towers. Also included is a series of photographs documenting the United States Lighthouse Depot (now the National Lighthouse Museum) on Staten Island, New York. The U.S. Lighthouse Depot served as a national headquarters for the Lighthouse Board and as a center for testing new technologies, and building and repairing lighthouses, lightships and other equipment. Folders 31-32 include a group of beach erosion survey photographs taken in 1919 at Barnegat Light Station in New Jersey. A few photographs feature lighthouse keepers or other unidentified individuals; for example an 1884 photograph of the Ida Lewis Rock Lighthouse (formerly Lime Rock) in Rhode Island features Ida Lewis in front of the structure. (A duplicate cyanotype print of this image is available in Series I). The series also includes a set of identical clippings from a March 27, 1936, edition of the New York Daily News regarding a ship which ran aground near Race Rock Light, New York. Two pamphlets outlining a lighthouse cruise from Portland, Maine to New York are available with other oversize materials in Box 7.

The subseries Foreign and U.S. Territorial Lighthouses consists of one photograph by Alfred Camm of Bishop's Rock Light in England, and a group of eighteen photographs of lighthouses in the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico. Thirteen photographs of unidentified lighthouses are located in folder 51 at the end of this series.