Visual Materials

Oversize portraits (items 1215-1248)

Description: 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.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: approximately 1890-1908
Call number: photCL 352
Creator: Johnston, Frances Benjamin (1864-1952)(Opens in new tab)

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 1215-1220

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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Items 1245-1248, 1250-1251

Visual Materials

photCL 352

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11 x 14 inch and larger negatives (items 1215-1276)

Visual Materials

photCL 352

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Portraits (items 1-931)

Visual Materials

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.

photCL 352

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Government events and group portraits (items 932-998)

Visual Materials

Group portraits capture government employees that were members of presidential cabinets, commissions, senate committees, delegations, and more. They include U.S. Mint employees (1889), Senate Military Affairs Committee (1891), Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury (1901), and the U.S. Delegates to the Pan-American Congress (1906), the Venezuelan Commission (1896), Samoan Commission (1899), First and Second Philippine Commissions (1899, 1900), Chinese High Commission, the Presidential Commission to receive Prince Henry, President McKinley's Cabinet (1901), and more. Also included are select government events such as the unveiling of the McKinley Memorial (1907), the unveiling of the Rochambeau Statue by President Theodore Roosevelt in Lafayette Square (1902), the Pan-American Exposition (including the last photograph of McKinley before he was assassinated at this event in 1901), laying the cornerstone for the Pan American Union Building (1908), the Exchange of Warrants for the Philippines (1899), and the Opening of the 60th U.S. Congress (1907). Large format government events and portraits can be found in Subseries "Oversize group portraits and government events (items 1249-1276)."

photCL 352

Oversize portraits (items 1215-1248)

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

Items 1215-1220

Items 1245-1248, 1250-1251

11 x 14 inch and larger negatives (items 1215-1276)

Portraits (items 1-931)

Government events and group portraits (items 932-998)