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Richard H. Lawrence photographs

Call Number

PR 032

Date

circa 1885-1889, inclusive

Creator

Lawrence, Richard Hoe

Extent

1 box(es)

Language of Materials

English is used on documents in the collection.

Abstract

Copy negatives and modern prints of photographs taken by Richard Hoe Lawrence (1858–1936) of the slum conditions on Manhattan's Lower East Side at the end of the 19th century. Social reformer Jacob A. Riis used a number of Lawrence's images in his lectures on "The Other Half." In addition to general street scenes and Coney Island outings, the collection includes views of early baseball games at the Polo Grounds, the aftermath of the Blizzard of 1888, and the celebrations marking the 1889 centennial of George Washington's first inauguration.

Biographical / Historical

Gentleman banker Richard Hoe Lawrence (1858–1936) pursued his antiquarian interests through active participation in the Grolier Club and in the Society of Iconophiles, which published prints illustrating Manhattan's iconography. Lawrence was also an early member of the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York. He produced numerous lantern slides and won a silver prize for hand camera work at the same Society show at which Robert Bracklow and Alfred Stieglitz also won awards.

Arrangement

Prints are filed by subject. Negatives are filed by Society-assigned numbers. The finding aid lists each image by key title subject word and by negative number. Some of the photographs are indexed in the Negative File catalog maintained by the Department of Rights and Reproductions.

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of 202 copy film negatives (black-and-white; 4 x 5 in.) and 189 modern reference prints (black-and-white; 8 x 10 in.). Of special interest are the photographs Richard Hoe Lawrence took for Jacob Riis of slum conditions on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1887. Lawrence and fellow camera club members Dr. John T. Nagle and Dr. Henry G. Piffard accompanied Riis until Riis learned to photograph on his own. Riis used the resulting lantern slides in his famous lectures on "The Other Half: How It Lives and Dies in New York." Maren Stange has recently shown that Lawrence took at least 31 of the photographs usually credited to Riis, but Lawrence cropped his copies to achieve softer character-type studies. Of the 37 slum views at the Society, five are credited to Piffard, who provided the necessary expertise in lighting dark alleys and interiors with the new magnesium flash powder technique. Other views show opium smokers in Chinatown, homeless lodgers and prisoners at a police station, a "black and tan" dive, and a boys' gang acting out a robbery.

Also significant are eight early action shots of baseball games at the Manhattan Polo Grounds in 1886. More routine views, possibly taken during family or camera club outings, include: beach bathing, the Blizzard of 1888, the 1889 Washington Inaugural Centennial naval and land parades, a fire, the Produce Exchange and Spanish Flats, sport shooting and tennis, house interiors, and Sing Sing prison. Lawrence captioned some of the photographs with descriptive titles and dates. Society staff devised short titles for the others and annotated the slum prints with detailed notes about comparable views by Jacob Riis.

Conditions Governing Access

Open to qualified researchers by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, contact the Print Room Librarian at printroom@nyhistory.org.

Conditions Governing Use

Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to 20 exposures of stable, unbound material per day. Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

The collection should be cited as the Richard H. Lawrence Photographs, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Copied from lantern slides and albums on loan from the photographer's widow, Mrs. Jessie Cort Lawrence, in 1950.

Related Materials

Other views by Lawrence are found in the Lantern Slide Collection (PR-070). Similar slum images are in the Jacob A. Riis Reference Photograph Collection (PR-059). And the Museum of the City of New York holds several lantern slides credited to Lawrence in its Jacob A. Riis Collection.

Collection processed by

Joseph Ditta

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:46:34 -0400.
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

Organized and inventoried by New-York Historical Society staff before 1998. WORD-document finding aid migrated to ArchivesSpace by Joseph Ditta, July 2020.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024