1276
from everyday life. Objects for display in 1888 included
Samuel F. B. Morse’s daguerreotype camera, the fi rst
in America; a portrait of Morse, a plate holder, and a
fuming box purchased from the National Photographic
Association. William Bell and S.R. Seibert donated
additional pieces of apparatus for display. Commercial
contributors included George Eastman and the Eastman
Dry Plate Company, William Kurtz and the Scovill
Manufacturing Company.
Following the close of the Cincinnati exhibition,
some of photographic items were retained by the
Smithsonian as the start of its photography collection.
Work on traveling exhibitions and collecting artifacts
for a history of photography collection continued over
the next decade. Friends to the collection like John
Wesley Powell, of the U.S. Geological Survey and
later the Smithsonian’s Bureau of American Ethnology,
and photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston, who
apprenticed with Smillie, were infl uential in bringing
signifi cant acquisitions to the growing collection. In
1896, a Section of Photography was recognized within
the Division of Graphic Arts, and established as the
fi rst unit of its kind in an American public museum.
Smillie was given the title of “honorary custodian” of
the photography collection while continuing his work
as offi cial Smithsonian photographer; he retained both
titles through long career. He died in 1917 while still
supervising the photography collection.
The 1896 Washington Salon and Photographic
Art Exhibition, sponsored by the Camera Club of the
Capital Bicycle Club, presented an opportunity to for
Goode and Smillie to expand the national collection of
photography to include its fi rst examples of the picto-
rialist, or art photography. Fifty of the 345 works on
exhibit at the Washington Salon where purchased for
the Smithsonian’s new Section of Photography. The
selection of platinum and carbon prints represented
work of notable photographers such as Philadelphia
photographers Alfred Clements, Clarence Moore, and
Henry Troth; New York photographer Charles I. Berg;
female photographers Mary Bartlett, Sarah Eddy, Emma
Fitz, Emma J. Farnwsorth, and Frances Benjamin John-
ston; and many amateur photographer members of the
Washington Camera Club. Alfred Stieglitz did not sub-
mit any of his own photographs to the 1896 Salon but
acknowledged the effort of the U.S. National Museum as
a step forward in the acceptance of photography as art.
Smillie’s later correspondence with Stieglitz result in a
purchase of twenty-seven photographs from Stieglitz’s
personal collection of his own work and that of his
contemporaries for the installation of the fi rst Smith-
sonian Hall of Photography in June 1913. The exhibit
presented to the visiting public the history of the science,
technology and art of photography, select inventors,
professional and amateur photographs and equipment,
and the beginnings of the motion picture.
Only four men have followed Thomas Smillie as
custodians to the unit: Loring Beeson (1917–1920),
A.J. Olmsted (1920–1946), Alexander Wedderburn
(1946–1960), and Eugene Ostroff (1960–1994). Wed-
derburn and Ostroff held the title of curator. Important
materials accessioned reference the various processes
and formats of photography and signifi cant collections
of individual photographers William Henry Fox Talbot,
J.W. Osborne, Dr. John W. Draper, Peter Neff, Eadweard
Muybridge, H.H. Bennett, Frederic Ives, Ansel Adams,
Victor Keppler, Richard Avedon, Elliott Erwitt, and
Edward Weston. Works by Washington, D.C. photogra-
phers are collected, such as Mathew Brady, Alexander
Gardner, William Henry Jackson, William Towle, the
Bell and Scurlock families, and Fred Maroon. Strengths
in the apparatus collection are the U.S. Patent Model
collection, stereoscopic cameras and viewers, the GAF
collection and still camera collection, the printing and
processing collection, and early motion picture appa-
ratus dating from 1895–1915.
More than one hundred years have past since the
inception of the Smithsonian’s collections pertaining
to the history of photography. Now referred to as the
Photographic History Collection within the National
Museum of American History, the unit’s mission focuses
primarily on American photography encompassing so-
cial history, technical innovation and aesthetic values.
Yet, the Collection has maintained a holistic approach
to document the history of the fi eld, study the effects
of time, and collect best works of both professional and
amateur photographers. The Collection has increased to
150,000 photographs and 10,000 pieces of photographic
apparatus.
The Smithsonian Institution now administers sixteen
museums each with photograph collections pertaining to
its holdings. The African Art Museum, Cooper-Hewitt
Museum of Design, Freer/Sackler Gallery of Asian Art,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (modern
art/international scope), National Museum of American
History, National Museum of American Indian, National
Museum of Natural History, National Portrait Gallery,
Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Smithsonian
Archives all offer rich research opportunities in the
study of photography.
Michelle Anne DelaneySee also: Smillie, Thomas; Scovill & Adams;
Eastman, George; Bell, William; Morse, Samuel
Finley Breese; Stieglitz, Alfred; Art Photography;
Talbot, William Henry Fox; Draper, John William;
Brady, Mathew B.; Gardner, Alexander; Jackson,
William Henry; and Stereoscopy.