Series I: Broadway Theatrical Photography, 1879-1987, inclusive

Apeda Studio was founded in 1906 by partners Alexander W. Dreyfoos (1877-1952) and Henry Obstfield. The studio was originally located at 33 West 34th Street, and Dreyfoos was the head photographer, and Obstfield managed the studio. Apeda Studios focused on sports, theater and celebrity portraiture. In addition to shooting portraits, Apeda Studios specialized in reproducing uncopyrighted images by other photographers under its own trade name. If other photographers had images that they could not reproduce and market themselves, or took a photograph that could not be copyrighted because there was no contract between photographer and sitter, Apeda would secure a print, remove whatever name or trademark appeared on the print and affixed their own Apeda signature to the copies it produced. Apeda would also buy up the entire production archive of photographers who had business difficulties or were moving to other parts of the country. During the mid-1930s Apeda shifted away from performing arts photography, turning to advertising imagery, industrial photography, and class portraiture.

George Maillard Kesslere (1894-1979) was known for his painterly portraits of actors, celebrities, and New York society figures. He was considered one of the finest bust format photographers of the 1920s and 1930s. Kesslere opened a studio in New York City in 1921, and his work caught the attention of Broadway producer and director Earl Carroll, who installed Kesslere as his official photographer after the death of John De Mirjian in 1928. The theater programs for Carroll's "Vanities" series featured paintings and photos by Kesslere. In April 1952, Kesslere donated 6,000 photographs and 500 paintings to the Theater Collection of the New York Public Library.

Born in Minsk, Russia, Herman Mishkin (1871-1948) immigrated to the United States in 1885. While working as a store clerk in New York City, Mishkin began shooting cartes de visites and cabinet portraits of performers in costume in the 1890s, eventually securing a position with Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company as a photographer-publicist.

In 1908, the Metropolitan Opera hired Mishkin as its official photographer, and he served as the Met's portraitist until 1932. While shooting opera stars for the Metropolitan, he maintained a portrait studio frequented by most of the significant actors and celebrities of the day.

Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896) was the premier theatrical photographer of the 19th century. Born in Québec, Sarony moved to New York in 1836 and began his career in the lithography industry. He learned his trade while employed by Currier and Ives, and eventually even set up his own lithography shop. He opened his first photography studio in 1867, near 630 Broadway in New York. Otto Sarony, (1850–1903) son and heir of Napoleon Sarony, worked with his father. Otto began directing sessions that appeared under the Sarony signature in the late 1880s. He presided over virtually every session undertaken by the studio from 1893 until his father's death in 1896. From 1896 until October 7, 1898, he was sole proprietor of the business. In 1898 he sold the studio, including the trademark name "Sarony" to Jonathan Burrow. Otto Sarony managed the studio until his death in 1903. To Burrow's chagrin, in 1902 Otto Sarony had sold the right to his own name to photographic entrepreneur Theodore C. Marceau, who set up a rival studio. Sarony remained a viable brand in portrait photography until the mid-20th century.

Founded by New Yorker Luther S. White (1857-1936), White Studio had a leading role in documenting Broadway stage productions from 1905 to 1939. This photographic agency employed a series of photographers who recorded hundreds of performers and thousands of productions of the American stage. The studio was divided into two operations: the portrait studio located on Broadway, and a mobile team of production photographers who hauled their equipment to the dress rehearsals for stage pictures. Two renowned photographers worked uncredited in the portrait studio: Edward Thayer Monroe during the 1910s and Ralph Shaklee in the 1930s.