AFA Autumn 2021

Autumn 74 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Ambrotypes of Early New England Historic Genealogical Society Officers , David E. James & Co., Boston, Massachusetts, October 1858. Photographs set in mahogany frame. 21 × 18½ inches. (R0250). In October 1858, the New England Historic Genealogical Society took advantage of what was then still fairly new technology to compile this photo montage of twenty-four of its earliest officers, the oldest group image we have of the organization’s leadership and a sign of its maturation. The organization commissioned local photographer David E. James (active circa 1850s), located at 4 Summer Street, to prepare the photographs. At the same time, they created a similar array of forty of the organization’s earliest members. Each of these views contains small oval ambrotypes of an older white male, characteristic of the membership in its formative years (women were first admitted as members in 1898). Harvard had begun the tradition of class photograph albums in 1852, and the custom of taking photographic portraits of prominent individuals by famous photographers such as Matthew Brady was also becoming widespread. NEHGS was probably following suit by creating a record of their early leaders and members. James provided his patented ambrotypes for 25 cents each, and upwards. Developed in the early 1850s, ambrotypes were produced by commercial photographers as a less expensive version of a daguerreotype. Printed by a collodion process on a glass plate, as opposed to a silvered copper plate, ambrotypes were also one-of-a-kind images. James & Company was one of thirty-five photographers listed in the Boston Almanac for 1858.