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Burr McIntosh photograph collection

Call Number

PR 41

Date

1898-1910, inclusive

Creator

McIntosh, Burr, 1862-1942

Extent

5.67 Linear feet (17 boxes)

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

Collection of photographs, mainly celebrity portraits, taken by Burr McIntosh.

The Burr McIntosh Photograph Collection is digitized and available in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Digital Library.

Biographical Note

Burr McIntosh had an eclectic career. He was known, at different points in his life, to be a lecturer, photographer, movie studio owner, actor, author, publisher, reporter and a pioneer in the early movie and radio business. While many of these endeavors were short-lived, they gained him prestige and popularity among the stylish set.

He was born William McIntosh August 21, 1862, in Wellsville, Ohio, and attended Lafayette College, 1880 - 82, and Princeton, 1882 - 83. After Princeton, McIntosh was in the coal business in Pittsburgh for a brief time and then followed this up with a short stint as a reporter for the Philadelphia News. He came to New York and made his theatrical debut in Bartley Campbell's "Paquita" in August 31, 1885, beginning his most successful and memorable career, as an actor on the theatrical stage. He adopted a stage name at this time, changing his first name to Burr. His biggest success came playing the character Talbot "Taffy" Wynne in the original 1895 Broadway production of "Trilby" at the Garden Theatre. He repeated this performance in major Broadway revivals in 1905 and 1915, as well as in a production in London at His Majesty's Theatre. McIntosh also appeared in a number of Augustus Thomas' plays, beginning with "Arizona" and "In Mizzoura."

In 1898, Burr McIntosh went to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American War for Leslie's Weekly as a reporter and photographer. Defying orders forbidding any newspapermen to land in Cuba until every soldier in the Army had landed, he jumped over the side of a boat and swam to shore in time to get the only photographs of the troops coming ashore at Daiquiri. In Cuba, he became ill with "yellow jack" (a form of yellow fever) and was out of action. He eventually recovered and wrote of his exploits in a 1901 book, What Little I Saw of Cuba.

The year 1901 also saw the establishment of his first photographic studio on West 33rd Street, conveniently located across from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, a meeting place of many of the society and theatrical people whose portraits would be taken by the studio. This work led McIntosh to found the Burr McIntosh Monthly, which ran from 1903 to 1910, and offered portraits of theater idols, scenes at fashionable athletic events, picturesque genre and nature studies, and discussions of photography as art. In 1908, McIntosh declared bankruptcy and ceased publishing in May 1910.

In addition to acting and publishing, Burr McIntosh accompanied Secretary of War William H. Taft's 1905 peace trip to the Philippines as the official photographer.

In 1910, Burr McIntosh announced an elaborate plan to found an artists' colony with the fortune he hoped to make from the early movie industry. To accomplish this goal, he moved to California to organize his own film company. He also announced his retirement from the stage after his 1909 national tour in "The Gentleman from Mississippi." This retirement was not permanent as McIntosh appeared on Broadway six more times between 1914 and his last play, "Robert E. Lee," in 1923, including his successful revival of Taffy in "Trilby" in 1915. Neither the fortune from the movie industry nor the artists' colony ever materialized. His movie career began in 1914 recreating his stage performance in "In Mizzoura." The following year he starred in the title role of the movie " Colonel Carter of Cartersville," which was the only film that he ever produced. His work as an actor in movies stretched from the silent movies of 1914 until the era of sound movies, ending with "The Richest Girl in the World" in 1934.

McIntosh took time away from movies during the First World War when he lectured on patriotism and the role of the United States in the war at venues around the country, including the Metropolitan Opera House and Carnegie Hall in New York. He also entertained as a YMCA worker in army camps in France and Germany. After the war, he supported Leonard Wood for the Republican presidential nomination with further speaking appearances.

In the disastrous year of 1929, Burr McIntosh declared bankruptcy. His wife, the former Jean Snowden of Saratoga, whom he had married in New York in 1914, attempted suicide. According to an interview that McIntosh gave to the New York Times at this time, she had succumbed to her serious disappointment that McIntosh's work in Hollywood had not produced the financial returns they had anticipated.

From 1930 until his death in Los Angeles on April 28, 1942, Burr McIntosh was known as the "Cheerful Philosopher" as the host of a radio programs and in a series of lectures offering optimistic views on life. He had one daughter, Nancy McIntosh.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into four series:

Missing Title

  1. Series I. 8 x 10 inch Prints
  2. Series II. 5 x 7 inch Prints
  3. Series III. 11 x 14 inch Prints
  4. Series IV. Glass Plate Negatives

Thereunder, photographs are filed alphabetically by sitter.

Scope and Content Note

The Burr McIntosh Photograph Collection spans the period from ca. 1900 to 1910 and documents McIntosh's career as a photographer of prominent figures in the arts, society, and politics, many of whom were his friends and acquaintances. The vast majority of the ca. 3,000 prints were made by the New-York Historical Society in the late 1940s from glass plate negatives taken during the period 1900 - 1910; the negatives were destroyed after being printed. The remaining glass plates, approximately 600, do not have prints.

The collection consists of early work such as images from the Spanish-American War siege of Santiago, Cuba, which he covered for Leslie's Weekly and published in The Little I Saw of Cuba. Another group of photos shows Secretary Taft's good will trip to the Philippines in 1905. Most of the remaining images are society and celebrity portraits, many of which were published in McIntosh's magazine. Actors Ethel and John Barrymore appear at the seashore; philanthropist A. G. Vanderbilt celebrates a holiday at his Adirondack lodge; ingenue Evelyn Nesbit poses seductively; and architect Charles F. McKim enjoys a quiet country outing. Children playing, professional New York theatrical groups, and miscellaneous buildings are also included in the collection. Society sporting gatherings such as horse shows and events, including polo and fox hunting, and sailing at Newport, Rhode Island, are also well represented within the collection.

Identification of the sitter is from the original caption information on the glass plate negatives, usually limited to the sitter's name that, in some cases, is only a surname. The unidentified portraits in all the series include many theatrical, costumed portraits of men, women, and groups. Most of the sitters appear in more than one series.

Access Restrictions

Open to qualified researchers.

Photocopying will be undertaken by staff only, and is limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days. See guidelines in the Print Room for details.

Use Restrictions

Permission to reproduce any Print Room holdings through publication must be obtained from:

Rights and Reproductions
The New-York Historical Society
Two West 77th Street
New York, NY 10024

Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282
Fax: (212) 579-8794

The copyright law of the United States governs the making of photocopies and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials. Unpublished materials created before January 1, 1978 cannot be quoted in publication without permission of the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as Burr McIntosh Photograph Collection, PR 041, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of the New York Herald Tribune, July 1, 1942.

Related Material at the Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections

A full run of volumes of Burr McIntosh Monthly is available in the New-York Historical Society library, as well as a copy of Burr McIntosh's The Little I Saw of Cuba. The Theatrical Portrait File (PR 104) contains several cabinet cards from Burr McIntosh's studio which were given to N-YHS by other donors.

Existence and Location of Copies

Digital copies are available in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Digital Library.

Collection processed by

Ricky Hunter

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:46:38 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from mcintosh.xml

Repository

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