165
In 1861 Black began experimenting with using
porcelain as a photographic support. The process was
praised for its softness, delicacy and resistance to fad-
ing, and taken up by other photographers in the area,
including Whipple.
After his partnership with Batchelder dissolved
in 1862 Black continued the business on his own for
several years and was quite successful. He expanded
his studio space into another building and, according
to contemporary accounts, employed anywhere from
three to sixty assistants. An 1863 advertisement from
the Boston Directory describes the fi rm’s services:
cartes-de-visite and life size portraits in oil, pictures
fi nished in India ink and watercolor, an operating room
that could accommodate large groups, the copying of
daguerreotypes, and cartes-de-visite “enlarged and
fi nished in any style, and in the most perfect manner.”
Black was also known for his generosity in showing
people, including other photographers and inventors,
around his studio.
John G. Case was Black’s partner from July 1864
through February 1867. During that period they did an
extensive business at the Boston location and also oper-
ated a studio in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1864 there
were about seventy photographers operating studios
in Boston. One contemporary observer claimed that
Black’s was the largest, occupying a “wilderness of
rooms” and employing as many as sixty people. There
were 40,000 negatives, nearly twenty tons of glass
according to this observer, stored throughout Black’s
establishment at 163 and 173 Washington Street.
Among Black’s best-known photographs are views
of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which destroyed over
one thousand buildings in the city’s commercial district.
His studio on the north side of Washington Street was
saved, but all the buildings across the street were gutted.
Black made over 150 large and small albumen prints of
the destroyed “burnt district” that he sold for $3.00 and
$1.50 respectively. He also made magic lantern slides of
the ruins. Although many photographers took pictures
of the fi re’s aftermath, those by Black were widely
published both nationally and abroad and compiled by
Black in Ruins of the Great Fire in Boston. November
1872 (Boston, 1873). As Pierce has noted, the images
are successful because of their unique point of view:
rather than photographing large areas of damage, Black
focused on architectural structures and unusual details
such as piles of wet clothing and included people in his
views to emphasize the devastation caused by the fi re.
In 1874 the fi rm name was changed to Black & Co.
and in 1876, Black’s assistant John L. Dunmore became
a partner. In the later years of his photographic practice,
Black and his partners created large format images of
a variety of subject matter, including military subjects,
factories, public buildings and residences, special
events, and works of art. Black began to experience
fi nancial diffi culties in the second half of the 1870s,
but continued working until his death from pneumonia
on 5 January 1896. His son Otis Fisher Black took care
of the studio’s business affairs until its close in 1901.
Selections of Black’s work can be found in the following
collections: Boston Athenaeum, Boston Public Library,
Bostonian Society, Massachusetts Historical Society,
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities,
and the International Museum of Photography, George
Eastman House.
Michelle LamunièreBiography
Black was born on 10 February 1825 in Francestown,
New Hampshire. He fi rst learned daguerreotypy from
John A. Lerow in Boston in 1846, but his most impor-
tant affi liation was with John Adams Whipple with
whom he partnered from 1856 to 1859. Black married
Frances Georgianna Sharp, the daughter of painter and
lithographer William Sharp, on June 9, 1859. Their two
surviving children, Olive P. Black and Otis Fisher Black,
were born in 1861 and 1867 respectively. In addition to
his portrait work, Black’s noteworthy projects include
New Hampshire landscapes, aerial views of Boston,
and documents of the aftermath of Boston’s Great Fire
(1872). For nearly thirty years beginning in 1856 he
contributed regularly to the exhibitions of the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, frequently
receiving awards. He was also active in the National
Photographic Association and a founding member of the
Boston Photographic Union, later renamed the Boston
Photographic Association. Black died in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on 5 January 1896.
See Also: Whipple, John Adams; Southworth, Albert
Sands, and Josiah Johnson Hawes; and Carte-de-
Visite.Further Reading
Black, J.W., “Days Gone By,” in St. Louis Practical Photogra-
pher, July 1877, 220–221.
Edidin, Stephen Robert, The Photographs of James Wallace
Black: Views of the Ruins of the Great Fire in Boston, Novem-
ber, 1872. From the Collection of the Library of the Boston
Athenaeum. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum
of Art, 1977.
“In Memoriam: J.W. Black,” in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine,
March 1896, 120–121.
Loomis, Grover H., “Gallery Biographic. No. 2. John [sic] Wal-
lace Black,” in Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin, December
1874, 389–391.
Pierce, Sally, with a chronological annotated bibliography by
William S. Johnson, Whipple and Black: Commercial Photog-
raphers in Boston. Boston: The Boston Athenaeum, 1987.
Robinson, William F., A Certain Slant of Light: The First Hun-
dred Years of New England Photography. Boston: New York
Graphic Society, 1980.