1260
Adams ran Scovill & Adams until his death in 1896,
whereupon his son Washington Irving Lincoln Adams,
editor of Photographic Times, assumed operation of the
company. Under the younger Adams, the fi rm entered
into the manufacturing of roll fi lm in 1899.
On December 23, 1901, Scovill & Adams and their
main competitor of fi fty years, E. &H.T. Anthony &
Co., merged and formed Scovill & Anthony with a
joint capital stock worth $2,500,000. In 1902, the fi rm
relocated principal operations to Binghamton, New
York, and, in 1907, changed its name to Ansco. In 1928,
Ansco merged with the fi lm company Agfa, and the new
company focused on the manufacture of fi lm. In 1939,
General Aniline & Film Corp, known as GAF, merged
with Agfa-Ansco and the company, later renamed
Anitec, continued operation until 1998.
Erika Piola
See also: Camera Accessories; Camera Design: 5
Portable Hand Cameras (1880–1900); Carbutt, John;
Daguerreotype; Dry Plate Negatives: Gelatine; and
Eastman, George.
Further Reading
“A Tribute to the Memory of Washington Irving Adams.” Wilson’s
Photographic Magazine, (February 1896) 63–72.
“James Mitchell Lamson Scovill,” In History of Waterbury
and the Naugatuck Valley Connecticut, edited by William.
J. Pape, vol. 2, New York: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company,
1918.
Marder, William, Anthony, the Man, the Company, the Cameras:
An American Photographic Pioneer: 140 Year History of a
Company form Anthony to Ansco, to GAF, Plantation, FL:
Pine Ridge Pub. Co., 1982.
“Our Founder Gone.”The Photographic Times, February 1896,
65–66.
Scovill Brass. Buttons, Cameras, and Cartridge Cases. Westport,
CT: Historical Perspectives, 1997
Scovill Manufacturing Company. Scovill Manufacturing Co.
(s.l., s.n., n.d.)
“The Scovill & Adams Company.” Wilson’s Photographic Maga-
zine (February 1889): 97–98.
“William Henry Scovill.” In History of Waterbury and the Nau-
gatuck Valley Connecticut, edited by William. J. Pape, vol. 2,
New York: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918.
Rinhart, Floyd, and Marion Rinhart, The American Daguerreo-
type, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1981.
SCOWEN, CHARLES T.
(active 1873–1890)
English, photographer and publisher, active in
Ceylon
Charles Scowen arrived in Kandy, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
in early 1873. He worked as a clerk for some period of
time but by 1876 he had opened a photographic studio.
In 1885, the fi rm which bore his name, Scowen & Co.
had studios in Kandy and Colombo. Scowen & Co. of-
fered an extensive catalogue of sensitively photographed
studies of native people, as well as the antiquities and
landscapes of Ceylon. During its existence, there appear
to have been several Scowens involved in the operation
of the studio—Charles T. Scowen returned to England
in 1885, and C. Scowen was listed as proprietor until
1891, M. Scowen was proprietor in 1893 when the fi rm
changed hands and the companies stock, including
negatives, was taken over by the Colombo Apothecaries
Co. Photographs credited to Scowen & Co were used
as illustrations in a number of books about Ceylon and
the tea trade.
Kathleen HoweSEARS, SARAH CHOATE (1858–1935)
American photographer and painter
Sarah Choate Sears was born in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, in 1858 to Elizabeth Carlisle and Charles Francis
Choate, a lawyer. In 1877, she married the wealthy real
estate magnate Joshua Montgomery Sears and became
a prominent member of Boston Society. She studied
painting at the Cowles Art School and the Museum of
Fine Arts School in Boston during the 1870s. She began
to receive recognition for her watercolors by the 1890s.
In the next decade she turned her attention to photogra-
phy, producing portraits and still lifes in the pictorialist
style. She became active in promoting photography as
an aesthetic medium along with Frederick Holland Day
and was infl uential in ensuring photography’s inclusion
in Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts inaugural show in- She was granted a solo exhibition at the Boston
Camera Club in 1899. She was also a member of the
British pictorialist association, the Linked Ring and the
Photo-Secession. After her husband’s death in 1905,
she abandoned her work as an artistic photographer and
dedicated herself to collecting contemporary art and
supporting the work of other photographers, particularly
the photographers of the Photo-Secession. She died in
West Gouldsboro, Maine, in 1935.
Andrea Korda
SEBAH, JOHANNES (JEAN) PASCAL
(1823–1886) AND JOAILLIER,
POLICARPE (1872–1947)
The Constantinople-based photographic studio Sebah &
Joaillier—formed from a partnership between Johannes
(Jean) Pascal Sebah and Policarpe Joaillier which dates
only from 1890, but from its establishment, took over
the marketing of the catalogue of fi ne images produced
in Turkey and Egypt by Pascal Sebah. Sebah operated
a studio in Constantinople from the 1860s, and also
worked in Egypt from 1873. The same images, therefore,