Visual Materials

Portraits (items 1-931)

Description: These images span the length of Johnston's major portraiture years. They notably include 23 shots of the first sitter in her studio, Frances Hodgson Burnett. The sitters include mostly local Washington DC, socialites, diplomats, presidents, senators, reformers, supreme court justices, artists, authors, and Confederacy officers. The print formats include both the original cyanotype prints that Johnston made, as well as copy gelatin silver prints that The Huntington made at later dates. Large format portraits can be found in Subseries "Oversize Portraits (items 1215-1248)." Notable sitters include Susan B. Anthony, President James Garfield, President William McKinley, President Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, Robert E. Lee, Eadweard Muybridge, and many more.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: approximately 1890-1908
Call number: photCL 352
Creator

Items 922-931

Visual Materials

The collection contains photographic prints and corresponding glass plate negatives by American photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston that focus on the portrait work of Johnston's earlier career in Washington, DC, mainly in the 1890s. The collection also contains interpositive copies of the glass plate negatives produced by The Huntington sometime during the mid to late twentieth century. The photographic prints and glass plate negatives were hand-selected by Johnston for The Huntington based on their "historical interest or value" and include many autographed prints. The prints are largely cyanotypes, with a few gelatin silver and platinum prints. Also included alongside Johnston's original prints are copy prints made by The Huntington at a later date. The collection is largely made up of Johnstons portraits of Washington, DC, socialites, politicians, artists, and more. In addition to that, there are photographs Johnston made for articles about government buildings and architectures, copies Johnston made of Matthew Brady's daguerreotypes, copies of State Department archives and War Department images, views of Bell Telephone Company instruments, and images of Abraham Lincoln objects and ephemera intended to illustrate Ida Tarbell's Life of Lincoln. Additional inventories are included that list subjects arranged first by title and then by last name.

photCL 352

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Oversize portraits (items 1215-1248)

Visual Materials

Larger photographic prints mostly made from larger 11 x 14 inch glass plate negatives. Sitters include Theodore Roosevelt (1902), a signed and mounted platinum print of Frances Folsom Cleveland, Julian Pauncefote, Wu T'ing Fang and his wife Madame Wu, and more. There is also a series of autographed salt prints of well-known men. The images are duplicates of the 8x10 inch portraits listed in the Portraits Series and appear to be a series that Johnston was preparing as a limited edition for sale.

photCL 352

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Sp-Y (items 801-931)

Visual Materials

photCL 352

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Oversize group portraits and government events (items 1249-1276)

Visual Materials

Larger photographic prints made from Johnston's 11 x 14 inch and larger glass plate negatives. Prints include a mounted platinum print of the Officers of the First National Congress of Mothers (February 1897). This organization was the forerunner of the Parent-Teacher Association, and the portrait is autographed by all the sitters. There is a series of cyanotype proofs and platinum prints of Frances Folsom Cleveland and the Ladies of the Cabinet (items 1250-1257). Both sittings (January, February 1897) are included and two of the mounted prints are signed by some of the women in attendance. Other items are group portraits of the first and second McKinley Cabinets, signing of treaties (1898, 1899), and opening ceremonies of the 59th U.S. Congress (1905).

photCL 352

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Items 1-148

Visual Materials

photCL 352

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Items 1-21

Visual Materials

photCL 352

Portraits (items 1-931)

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Items 922-931

Oversize portraits (items 1215-1248)

Sp-Y (items 801-931)

Oversize group portraits and government events (items 1249-1276)

Items 1-148

Items 1-21