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tisement during the mid-nineteenth century was to serve
as a template for wood engravers to make a wood block
print. Later photomechanical printing techniques such
as the woodburytype and photolithography attempted
to reproduce the appearance of the continuous range of
tones found in a photograph. Interim printing processes
such as the collotype and photogravure all required
photography to be separately printed and mounted or
tipped into the text.
From the mid-nineteenth century on, photographic
images were coupled with advertising on posters, trading
cards, and stereographs or in promotional volumes such
as trade albums, patterns books, and business directories.
An early application concerned the sale of real estate
property around Paris. In 1854, La Lumière reported new
applications of photography when the Bisson Brothers’
photographs of residences for sale were attached to
promotional posters and hung in train stations.
Ambrotype views by Mrs. Bethia Mead formed the
basis for engravings to promote commercial real estate
in Chicago. In 1857, her photographs of the prestigious
Iron Block Buildings along the city’s Lake Street busi-
ness district appeared reproduced in the elite journal
Chicago Magazine.
By 1858 the British photographic team of Padbury
and Dickins, specializing in product photography, re-
corded centerpieces, church furniture, and toast racks
on stereographic cards. Photography in this practice was
a benefi t to the middlemen, traveling salesmen, as they
could show their potential customers product images
instead of carrying around heavy samples.
In 1865 cartes de visites were affi xed to wanted post-
ers advertising the $100,000 reward for the capture of
President Abraham Lincoln’s murderers: John Wilkes
Booth, David C. Harold, and John H. Surrat. The post-
ers were commissioned and distributed by the United
States War Department.
By the 1870 and 1880s cabinet cards promoted dis-
parate product such as weaponry as in L. Lafon, Rapid
Fire Hotchkiss Cannon, 37mm, for Hotchkiss Arms and
scientifi c laboratory apparatus for the Wood & Comer
Ltd. (with a printed guarantee on the reverse) Various
kinds of trade albums and business directories survive.
In 1870 the French photographer Lafon was com-
missioned to document the Hotchkiss line of military
equipment. Lafon’s work differs from many product
albums of the day as his showed the goods in service;
his photographs showed French soldiers and sailors
demonstrating the operation of guns. Another promo-
tional album, the Illustrated Catalogue of Locomotives,
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1871, featuring
locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Company
of Philadelphia illustrates the many types of products
enhanced by photography.
In the same city, the Gallery of Arts and Manufactur-
ers of Philadelphia, a directory illustrating the wares of
fi fty-six businesses, issued in 1871 by the photographic
fi rm of Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown, and publisher
William Ritter, constitutes an advertising project on a
grand scale. Products represented in the Gallery, luxury
goods such as jewelry, watches, and perfume and utility
items, drugs, chemicals, sewing machines, dental tools,
and stationary, were featured with city businesses, for
instance, Wanamakers and Brown’s Oak Hall, one of
the nation’s fi rst department stores, and the Continental
Hotel, one of the fi rst in the country to install an elevatorBierstadt, Charles. Point View, Niagara, New York.
Courtesy: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © The J. Paul Getty Museum.