Photograph Collection

Stereograph File

Photograph Collection

C1: 060
1860s–1910s
approx. 318 stereographs (most albumen) and other photographic prints mounted on 4 x 7 inch cards 

C1:060 Stereograph File. Building spire of Lutheran Church, Winchester, Va. (LVA 07_0786_329)

Stereographic views were a popular nineteenth-century novelty that enabled photographs to be viewed in three dimensions. What appear to be identical photographic images paired adjacently on a cardboard support are actually slightly different and, when viewed through the lenses of a stereoscope, they “merge” to yield an unexpectedly convincing 3D effect. The Library’s Stereograph Collection contains over 300 images from many prominent photographers from the Civil War to the World War I eras. Photographs and publishers represented in the collection include the Keystone View Co., George S. Cook, Lee Gallery, D. H. Anderson, E. S. Lumpkin, Underwood & Underwood, George Ennis, Selden & Co., the Kilburn Bros., and Timothy O’Sullivan. Most of the images offer views of Richmond and other Virginia locales, such as the Old Stone House (now the Poe Museum), interiors of Washington’s Tomb, Salt Point, the Executive Mansion and Capitol Grounds (including the long-vanished wrought iron gazebo that housed the statue of Henry Clay), Monumental Church, and Libby Prison. There are also several rare photographs of Blue Ridge Springs and other long-defunct Virginia resorts, as well as a one-of-a-kind series of homemade stereographs with views of late- nineteenth-century Petersburg. 

Arrangement and access:
The collection is available for view on Digitool.

Provenance:… Read the rest

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Virginia Legislature Photograph Collection

Photograph Collection

C1: 169
1857–ongoing
average size 11 x 15 inches 

C1:169 Virginia Legislature Photograph Collection (LVA 09_0669_014_1940)

C1:169 Virginia Legislature Photograph Collection

The state’s bicameral legislature, consisting of the House of Delegates and the Senate, was confirmed in the Virginia Constitution of 1776, but can trace its lineage directly to the 1619 Jamestown House of Burgesses, making it effectively the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere. The present Virginia Constitution requires that the House consist of 90–100 members and the Senate of 33–40 members. Arranged chronologically, the Virginia Legislature Photograph Collection contains annual composite portraits of the General Assembly, beginning near the advent of photography in 1857, which are primarily the work of Richmond’s Foster Studio, and later Dementi Studio. The rosters witness the emergence of women, and the re-emergence of black Virginians, in the realm of state policymaking.  Although not every year is represented in the collection, in many cases the rosters feature the only known photographs of early Virginia lawmakers. 

Arrangement and access:
The entire collection is available on DigiTool

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Carneal & Johnston Negative Collection

Photograph Collection

C1: 143
ca. 1908–1924
194 glass-plate negatives, 21 film negatives

C1:143 Presentation drawing of Colonial Theater at 714 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia. Signed Hughson Hawley, 1919. Carneal & Johnston Negative Collection (LVA 10_0038_cj_162)

Architects William Leigh Carneal Jr. (1881–1958) and James Markam Ambler Johnston (1885–1974) founded their firm about 1908, after a year working independently but sharing office space in Richmond. Carneal & Johnston went on to become one of the most prolific and long-lived architectural practices in the state, by 1950 having shaped the distinctive architectural character of central Virginia, especially Richmond, with the completion of more than 1,300 buildings. The architects worked on a wide range of project types, from the mundane to the monumental, suburban bungalows to a proposed but never realized Ninth Street Victory Arch.

Amassed by the firm for documentary and promotional purposes, the Carneal & Johnston Collection photographically captures interior and exterior views of many commercial and municipal buildings, bridges, factories, apartments, and private residences, and includes a number of concept drawings entered into architectural competitions. Some of the most notable and easily recognizable structures represented in the collection include the First Virginia Regiment Armory (1913), the Richmond Dairy (1914) with its colossal milk bottles, the Colonial Theater (1919–1920), the Virginia State Office Building (1922–1923), and many collegiate gothic structures on the campuses of Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) and the Virginia Military Institute.

Arrangement and … Read the rest

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Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots

Photograph Collection

C1: 061
 ca. 1900–1990s, bulk 1930s-1960s
124 postcards

C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_011)

What makes this collection unique is its focus on the depots of smaller cities, towns, and whistle-stops of rural Virginia, rather than the palatial rail hubs of major cities, such as Richmond’s Main Street Station, of which there is already an abundant visual account. The images date from the very early twentieth century to the mid-1970s, with some images from as late as the 1990s. Almost all the images were daytime shots and practically none document human activity or presence. Instead they focus on the architectural qualities of the depots themselves, significantly without regard to any depot’s ostensible architectural importance. Indeed, the passenger shelter in Ashcake, Virginia, looks to be a tiny shack overtaken by shrubbery. Williamsburg’s looks more like a faux-colonial bank than a depot, and Danville’s is an aluminum modular building. Most of the depots featured, however, are in the more familiar “cottage” style.

Arrangement and access:
Alphabetically by location

Provenance:
Purchased 1997 

Related resources and collections:
Postcard Collection
Prince Railroad Collection

  • C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_007)
    C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_007)
  • C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_008)
    C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_008)
  • C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_009)
    C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_009)
  • C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_010)
    C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_010)
  • C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia Railroad Depots (LVA 11_1148_012)
    C1:061 Real Photo Postcard Collection of Virginia
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Byllesby Dam Photograph Collection

Photograph Collection

C1: 129
ca. 1911–1912
2 albums, 7 x 11 and 9 x 11 inches, 200 photographs, along with 66 modern copy photographs from albums belonging to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources

C1:129 Byllesby Dam Photograph Collection (LVA 11_1148_019)

In the early twentieth century, the Appalachian Power Company built a series of hydroelectric dams on the New River in Carroll County, Virginia. Completed in 1912, the Byllesby Dam took its name from H. M. Byllesby and Company, a Chicago investment firm that helped start Appalachian Power, and it created the serene 335-acre Byllesby Reservoir still popular with local fishermen and recreational boaters.

C1:129 Byllesby Dam Photograph Collection (LVA 11_1148_024)

The photographs in this collection document the phases of the dam’s construction and the building methods of the period, with interior shots of the transformer house and its giant turbines and wide-angle exterior views of the dam and cement-mixing plant with its and volute casing and draft tube forms, like abstract sculptures in the wilderness, awaiting cement. As significantly, the photographs capture the daily lives of the workers who made their home in the camp, with images of black-papered dormitories for engineers and office staff, tidy vegetable gardens growing beneath power lines, a pair of well-dressed women on horseback (on the same horse), candid shots of “natives” (locals), and various shots of workers at rest and play and gathered around a campfire at night. The collection … Read the rest

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