Historical Note

The Photographer File is an artificial collection of photographs that have been acquired through donation or purchase from prominent photographers. Photographs in this collection were often acquired in small numbers or for exhibitions at The New-York Historical Society. Some of the photographs in this collection were included in The New-York Historical Society exhibit "Manhattan Now: 14 Photographers Look at the Form of the City" in 1974, or the 1981 exhibit "Manhattan Observed: Fourteen Photographers Look at New York, 1972-1981." The Photographer File has developed over the years as a collection to house photographs of New York, often by well-known New York photographers. While the file consists mostly of work from the 1930s through the present, photographs by some early portrait photographers, such as Alice Boughton, Frances Benjamin Johnson, Charlotte Fairchild, Underwood & Underwood, and William A. Cooper are also included.