The Streets of Boston.
Tremont Street. No. III
Philip Harry (fl. 1843-1857)
Tinted lithograph by Bouve & Sharp, 1843.

The Print Room collections are particularly strong in depictions of Boston and New England in the nineteenth century. Through prints, photographs, and drawings one can trace the region's constantly changing architecture and topography. Boston's past is revealed in drawings made by the architects Charles Bulfinch and Alexander Parris, and in prints or photographs of extant or lost Boston neighborhoods and landmarks including the Tontine Crescent, Scollay Square, the Back Bay, the Hancock House, residential Summer Street, and the Old State House. Together with a large collection of historical portraits of Americans and Europeans, they make the Print Room a lively and comprehensive visual archive. It is a sign of the special and continuing role of the Athenæum in Boston's architectural and topographical history that the Print Room collections serve both those who would preserve the legacy of the city's past and those who seek to improve on it.

                                

John Brown
Anonymous photographer
Daguerreotype, c. 1856.

Many of the images housed in the Print Room are as significant for how they were made as for what they depict. The Charles E. Mason, Jr. collection, which specializes in prints made by Boston firms between 1825 and 1880, contains many important early lithographs, including William Sharp's portrait of the Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, thought to be the earliest example of color lithography in this country. The photograph collection represents most of the early photographic processes, including a Samuel Bemis daguerrotype of a New Hampshire landscape made only months after the Daguerrean process was brought to the United States. Through its ongoing program of exhibitions and publications, the Print Room has establish a reputation as a center for research in the history of printmaking and photography in Boston.

The Collections
Charles E. Mason, Jr. Print Collection--This comprehensive collection of nineteenth-century lithographs encompasses New England city views, portraits, views of factories and hotels, advertising posters, sheet music covers, theatrical prints, and trade cards. Boston was a center for lithography in the United States, and many well-known artist began their training as apprentices in its flourishing print shops. The development of the art is evident in the elegantly restrained black and white prints by the Pendleton firm, the commercial work of the prolific J. H. Bufford, and the dazzling chromolithographs of Louis Prang.

Fire Engine on Devonshire Street, Boston

James Wallace Black (1825-1896)
Albumen photograph, 1872

Photograph Collection--Specializing in works by Boston-area photographic firms, this collection comprises a catalog of early photographic processes. The important role played by Boston photographers in the history of the medium in America can be traced through the collection, which includes the work of Samuel Bemis, Southworth & Hawes, John Adams Whipple, James Wallace Black, and A.H. Folsom, among others. Internationally important photographers including Felix Nadar, Julia Margaret Cameron, Francis Frith, and Eadweard Muybridge are also represented in the collection. Boston's changing streetscape in this century is visible in the collections of photographs by John Murdoch and George M. Cushing, Jr.

Civil War Prints and Photographs--This collection contains prints made from sketches by enlisted artists including Henry Bacon and the Confederate Conrad Wise Chapman, the work of special artist-reporters Winslow Homer and Edwin Forbes, and battle scenes by Currier & Ives and Kurz & Allison. It includes photographs taken in the field by Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O'Sullivan, George M. Barnard, A.J. Russell, and Henry P. Moore.

Architectural Drawings--The Print Room houses the office archives for two important nineteenth-century architects in Boston: George Minot Dexter and Nathaniel J. Bradlee. Also accessible through the Print Room are drawings for proposed and realized works by Charles Bulfinch and Alexander Parris.

Watercolors and Drawings--These are works on paper by Edward Clarke Cabot, Ellen Day Hale, Allan Rohan Crite, Arthur Rotch, Isaac Sprague, Thomas Edwards, Thomas Badger, and Francesca Alexander.

Posters--Stored in the Print Room are more than seventeen hundred posters produced during World War I, most of them the gift of Bartlett Hayes, Jr. Housed with the Hayes collection is a smaller group of tourist and travel posters dating from the 1920s and 1930s.

American and European Portraits--This is an indexed collection of engraved, etched, photographic, and lithographic portraits of prominent personages, most living prior to 1900. The Print Room also houses a separate collection of portraits of George Washington.

Old House File--This collection contains miscellaneous images and articles culled from newspapers, illustrated magazines and books, and the work of professional photographers acquired since the turn of the century. The file is indexed by street within Boston, by town within Massachusetts, and by state for the rest of the nation.

Service
The Print Room is open to researchers by prior appointment only. The hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Appointments must be scheduled in advance. Contact Sally Pierce, 617-720-7648, or Catharina Slautterback, 617-720-7652, for more information about the collections or to make an appointment.

Online catalog
Since the year 2000, all new cataloging of Print Room materials is being entered into the Athena-Online Catalog, with a linked digital image whenever possible. However, the entries on Athena represent only a fraction of the print and photograph holdings. Plans are underway for a conversion of the existing card catalog of graphic images. In the interim, researchers are advised to consult the curatorial staff for information about use of the card catalog, special subject collections, and research files.

Bibliography

• Hoyle, Pamela. The Boston Ambience: An Exhibition of Nineteenth Century Photographs. Boston Athenæum, 1981. 44 pages, 25 illustrations.
• Hoyle, Pamela. The Development of Photography in Boston, 1840-1875. Boston Athenæum, 1979. 64 Pages, 34 illustrations.
• Hoyle, Pamela, Jonathan P. Harding and Rosemary Booth. A Climate for Art: The History of the Boston Athenæum Gallery, 1827-1873. Boston Athenæum, 1980. 41 pages, 34 illustrations.
• Katz, Harry L. A Continental Eye: The Art and Architecture of Arthur Rotch. Boston Athenæum, 1985. 72 pages, 44 illustrations.
• Knowles, Jane S. Change and Continuity: A Pictorial History of the Boston Athenæum. Boston Athenæum, 1976. 31 pages, 38 illustrations.
• Pierce, Sally and Catharina Slautterback. Boston Lithography, 1825-1880: The Boston Athenæum Collection. Boston Athenæum, 1991.
• Pierce, Sally with Catharina Slautterback and Georgia Brady Barnhill. Early American Lithography: Images to 1830. The Boston Athenæum, 1997. 87pp., 39 illustrations.
• Pierce, Sally and Temple D. Smith. Citizens in Conflict: Prints and Photographs of the American Civil War. Boston Athenæum, 1981. 50 pages, 35 illustrations.
• Pierce, Sally. Whipple and Black: Commercial Photographers in Boston. Boston Athenæum, 1987. 132 pages, 94 illustrations.
• Wick, Peter Arms. French Illustrated Books of the Romantic Period, 1820-1850. Boston Athenæum, 1983. 42 pages, 25 illustrations.