Series I: Boxed Files

Includes a set of 23 cabinet cards and a related scanned image of a boudoir size cabinet card all taken around 1889, and 3 clippings of newspaper ads from 1862. The cabinet cards were taken by Mrs. G. M. Bowen, a photographer from Waterloo, Iowa, of individual participants at a "merchants' carnival." In these photographs women physically advertise local shops and products by wearing dress skirts decorated with the products. For example, a woman with shoe soles pinned to the bottom of her dress is holding a banner advertising UTK Fine Footwear. One of the women advertise Bowen's photograph gallery. The cards were originally from the George T. Bagoe Collection, donated by Mrs. Elihu Spicer in 1960-61. The related scanned image in the folder was donated in July 2018 by Joseph B. Young; the image is a group shot showing all the participants.

mostly comprised of photographs of horses.

is divided into "Painting" and "Sculpture." "Sculpture" is largely photographs relating to sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910), including two photos of horses posing as models for equestrian statues and other photographs and engravings of Ward's sculptures, all given by the artist's daughter. It also includes a photograph of sculptor John Rogers' studio.

includes early engravings of telescopes and other devices. Several of these prints were engraved for British newspapers as early as 1748.

is divided into chronological periods. Most of this category is fashion plates and pages removed from magazines such as Godey's from as early as 1842. Some of these plates are hand-colored, and others are chromolithographed. Two folders are illustrations of French dresses and French fashion plates, dating from 1870-1880. There are also images of uniforms and gas masks.

includes photos and prints of telegraphs, tele-exchange, telephones, phonograph, and a photograph of a large group of women telephone operators.

includes two photographs of a lynching from 1930.

consists mainly of news release photographs taken in the early 1970s. Several of these show New York City policemen involved in shutting down a Gay Power demonstration. Several other demonstrations pictured are against the Vietnam War, such as an occupation of the Statue of Liberty by a group of Vietnam Veterans. Several images of a 1970 May Day celebration and counter-demonstration are in the "General" folder. Photos of women's suffrage demonstrations can be found in PEOPLE under "Women.

is almost all copy photography of photographs of westward movement throughout the United States, including images from Custer's 1874 expedition to South Dakota. The exception is the material illustrating Commodore Matthew Perry's trip to "open" Japan in 1853-1854. This group includes 34 lithographs from Perry's Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China seas and Japan, published in 1856.

documents primary and high schools, colleges, and universities. Images include a print satirizing a secret society at Yale as well as New York City Department of Higher Education promotional photographs.

includes many contemporary photographs of late 19th and early 20th century circuses. Jumbo the elephant is heavily represented in the folder of "Barnum and Bailey performers." All photos of Hagenbeck's Trained Animal Show are circa 1893.

Holds 2 copy prints of photos of the Allegheny River flood at Salamanca, NY, March 1913. Gift, John C. Minton, 2022.

is divided into construction and printing industries. "Construction Industry" is entirely photographs of buildings under construction by the Turner Construction Company from 1917 through 1958.

African-Americans includes a 1910 New York Police Department mugshot of Noah Boyd, photographs of a bar in Harlem in the 1940s, and a cardboard tag in the shape of a man's bust with the message End Lynching. Also represented are Civil War-era and later caricatures of African Americans, including many which were photographed and made into cabinet cards. The many images of slavery include an albumen print showing the interior of a slave pen in Alexandria, Virginia, and a French engraving of a slave sale in America. A number of prints cut from newspapers in 1858-9 detail the story of 200 captured slaves who were taken to Liberia on the steam-frigate Niagara. Also included here are group photographs of African American Civil War soldiers and a set of albumen photographs from 1863-1864 of paintings by T. Waterman Wood.

Indians of North America contains early prints and early photographs, as well as copy photography and published illustrations. Photographs with the same provenance or which are historically notable have been isolated into their own folders. One of these is a series of photographs taken by the U.S. Signal Corps ca. 1890 in the Black Hills of Montana around the time of Custer's battle. A set of cabinet cards issued by the Santa Fe Route train company shows Native Americans of the Southwest, and were probably meant as a tourist advertisement. One folder includes portrait photographs taken by William Henry Jackson for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Cyanotypes are also housed together.

Early European prints include a 1756 engraving of "Hendrick the Sachem, or Chief, of the Mohawks" and an 1827 hand-colored lithograph of "Les six Indiens de la tribu des Osages." A portrait of "Philip, King of Mount Hope," (Philip, Sachem of the Wampanoags, of King Philip's War) was engraved by Paul Revere, and is a plate from the 1772 edition of Benjamin Church's The Entertaining History of King Philip's War. Portraits of a "Maha Queen" and an "Ottoes Chief" are pages from an 1809 edition of the Travels of Capts. Lewis and Clark. Additional early portraits are of "Joseph Thayendanekan, a Mohawk Chief," and of "Mico Chlucco the Long Warrior, Chief of the Seminoles." Any portrait in which a tribe was named has been filed with other images of Native Americans in that tribe. Portraits in which no tribe was mentioned are filed alphabetically.

Prints after the work of early painters of Native Americans are plentiful. Most are hand-colored lithographs. A collection of plates of portraits of Indians after the artist George Catlin was given by Mrs. Ernest C. Kinney, a granddaughter-in-law of Catlin. These are most probably from a circa 1860 American edition of Catlin's Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, and are housed together with a few other prints after Catlin. Scenes engraved after Carl Bodmer, mainly for publication in mid to late 19th century magazines are found throughout this category.

Several lithographs are by John T. Bowen. Many of these images were published in Thomas McKenney and James Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America 1836-1844. One folder contains hand-colored lithographs after James Otto Lewis's paintings of Native Americans. Some of these were lithographed by J. H. Bufford. Another folder contains hand-colored engravings after drawings by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (1757-1810). Eight are from Grasset's Encyclopedie des Voyages. . ., Paris: 1796. These drawings are all of Iroquois and were engraved by Jean Laroque (active 1730-1775). Other plates from another of Saint-Sauveur's books, all with French captions, are also included. These are possibly from a later edition of his Costumes Civils Actuels de Tous les Peuples Connus, first published in 1788.

Includes two etchings matted together. Pencilled title "Nantucket kunst" and signed by artist "Dhayarnd." 1920s? Gift of Helene Greenberg Wyman, April 2018.

The category of Women consists mainly suffrage-era photography. Many of these photos were used bythe New York State Women's Suffrage Party for publicity purposes. Views include parades, voter registrations (some organized by the League of Women Voters), and two women flying an airplane.

holds photographs taken in 1971 at Attica prison in upstate New York after the Attica prison riots.

is comprised completely of photography of the Settlement Quarry in Maine taken in 1922-23.

includes photography and prints of the Croton Aquaduct and an engraving of the lower Manhattan Water Works in 1825.

includes images of trash incinerators, ether, radar machines, and scientific laboratories.

is divided into appliance stores, bakeries, and drug stores. A folder of snapshots and larger photos document the interior and exterior of the Bagoe family drugstore at 29th Street and Fourth Avenue.

is foldered by type of activity. "Boxing" includes a cabinet card of Ebert Zink, billed as a "boxing Lilliputian." "Football" includes the program from a Yale-Harvard football game on Nov. 21, 1914. "Golf" includes photographs of women playing the game. "Wrestling" holds a set of cabinet cards that show the different holds and positions of the sport.

Includes pictures of the Bronx Bureau of Highways, mainly showing construction along White Plains Avenue in the Bronx.

Includes a group of color photographs of the Roosevelt Island Tram, taken in the 1970s to 1980s.

Includes photos of the first transatlantic flight from Rockaway Beach, New York City to Plymouth, England in May 1919, as well as hot air ballons used for surveillance during the Civil War.

Includes photographs of New York City taxicabs.

is mainly historical prints depicting events that are not found in any other category. Several are plates from William A. Crafts' Pioneers in the Settlement of America (Estes & Lauriat, 1876). Photographs of the proceedings of the Knapp Commission, investigating corruption in the New York City police force in 1971, are also included.

is comprised of photographs from the late 1950s, taken by the City of New York Departments of Sanitation and Traffic, and the Citizen's Committee to Keep New York City Clean.

includes some contemporary engravings cut from British magazines in 1759-1760.

"United States Revolution" also includes a few contemporary engravings but is mostly later historical prints. Notable engravings include images of battles and events after paintings by A. Chappel (1850s) or John Trumbull (1844 and later).

"War of 1812" includes a copy of the pamphlet, Collection of American Victories, illustrated with engravings of paintings by French artists, published in New York in 1840.

United States Civil War-era photography was removed from the Subject File and is now its own collection. Civil War material left in this file is comprised of historical prints, both contemporary and later, copy photography, and later photography of battlesites and memorials. "Medical Aspects" includes images of the U. S. Sanitary Commission.

contains many contemporary photos that were mounted on paperboard. Many of these show an invasion of Cuba. A set of snapshots taken by Capt. Don A. Baxter show an army prison camp at Seavey's Island in Portsmouth N.H. Two copies of Our Heroes of the Spanish-American War (New York: Central Bureau of Engraving, 1898), a set of engravings of figures from the war, are included here as well.

includes many small groups of photos. Many of these are snapshots from training camps or the European theater. A set of German photographs showing German soldiers in action are stamped "Kaiser's Official Photographer." "Jacob's Collection" is two folders of snapshots showing daily life in New York during the war, including parades and rallies. Many of these photographs are captioned and dated. "Underwood and Underwood" are official news photos. All of the "Caricatures & Cartoons" found here were drawn by Bruce Bairnsfather. "Peace" includes images of the signing of the armistice and the victory parades in New York.

includes ephemera and some copy photography of posters. Official government and other photographs from World War II comprise their own collection, and should be consulted as well.