M

MICHAEL MILEY STUDIO COLLECTION

Photograph Collection

C1:177
ca. 1870–1918, negatives 1900–1918
58 8 x 10-inch glass-plate negatives,  12 carte de visites

Michael Miley (1841–1918), probably most famous for his portraits of Robert E. Lee, was a Rockbridge County native who contributed greatly to the burgeoning field of photography. After serving under General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in the Civil War, Miley moved to Staunton to study photography under J. H. Burdett, where he learned to print positive images using the albumen wet-plate process. He returned to Rockbridge County a year later and joined forces with Andrew Plecker, a traveling photographer from Lynchburg, which led to his most famous photograph: Robert E. Lee with his horse Traveller at the Rockbridge Baths. 

Miley MO35517

In 1866, Miley partnered with businessman John C. Boude to open a photography studio at the corner of Main and Nelson Streets in Lexington. He purchased Boude’s half of the business in 1870, named the studio the Stonewall Art Gallery, and found his niche as a portrait photographer. Miley also photographed classes and athletic teams at Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute. In 1895 his son Henry Miley joined the photography business and renamed the studio M. Miley & Son. Around this time, Miley began experimenting with carbon printing, a process that produced a permanent print in one color. The resulting experiment led to a patent on his color process in 1902, and in 1905 Michael and … Read the rest

MICHAEL MILEY STUDIO COLLECTION Read More »

Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album

Photograph Collection

C1: 133
1899–1901
1 album, 10 x 7 inches; 43 images 

C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album

C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album

This album bears a handwritten inscription by Charles T. Cobb, dated March 1935: “The photographs in this album are of my deceased father and his Wolf Pitt Copper Mines, which he once owned and operated at Virgilina, Virginia, in the early 1900s, during the time we lived in the South. He sold the mine holdings in 1907 to the owners of the Blue Wing Copper Mines Co. for a very large amount.” 

In addition to its photo-documentation of Virginia copper-mining practices of the turn of the century, this album contains rare visual information about Virgilina itself in its “boom days”—a busy little town of mining and moonshining, muddy roads and newly built hotels, houses and storefronts in a rugged landscape stripped of trees. Included are photos of the Jones Distillery, where corn whisky was manufactured (“by U.S. permit,” the handwritten caption assures us), local mining bosses William Battershill and George B. Cobb, and even the Hungarian “Count Carachristy” [sic], an expert in coal distillation. 

Provenance:
Donation, 1997

  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
  • C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album
    C1:133 Wolf Pitt Copper
… Read the rest

Wolf Pitt Copper Mine Photograph Album Read More »

Harry C. Mann Photograph Collection

Photograph Collection

C1: 008
1906–1923
approx. 3,000 vintage glass-plate negatives

C1:008 Harry C. Mann Photograph Collection

Harry Cowles Mann (1866–1926) was a vastly prolific commercial photographer based in Norfolk, Virginia, specializing in industrial views, portraits, and landscapes, particularly artful Cape Henry beach scenes. Though he hailed from the large and socially prominent Mann family of Virginia (his uncle was Gov. William Hodges Mann and his father was Edwin Mann, a judge on Petersburg’s Hustings Court), little is known of his personal life other than that he was a confirmed bachelor, of fragile health for the second half of his life, and died—for reasons that remain unclear—at the State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in Lynchburg. Sometime after being commissioned to photograph the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, Mann rented a studio space at 286 Main Street in downtown Norfolk, where he specialized in commercial photography, including “Buildings, Machinery, Landscapes and All Photographic Work for Half-Tone Reproduction.” Mann’s work was featured in National Geographic and his “nature portraits” of Craney Island and the Dismal Swamp won awards in photo competitions in Paris, London, and New York.

The Library’s collection of more than 3,000 prints and glass-plate negatives—more than half of which are available online—show Norfolk during and immediately after World War I. These include images of plantation houses; historic churches; public schools; department store display windows; architectural interiors of every description, including formal parlors, bedrooms, factory work spaces, restaurant dining rooms, and … Read the rest

Harry C. Mann Photograph Collection Read More »

J. H. Breazeale Jr. Photograph Album: Mules of World War I

Photograph Collection

C1: 105
ca.1915
1 album, 7 x 5 inches; 48 photo prints 

C1:105 J. H. Breazeale Jr. Photograph Album: Mules of World War I

C1:105 J. H. Breazeale Jr. Photograph Album: Mules of World War I

Among our most unique holdings, this small and unassuming piece, assembled by Dr. J. H. Breazeale (1889–1966), a veterinarian who served in the Army Medical Corps, reflects the striking public-private dichotomies of life in wartime, serving apparently as both a family photo album and work journal. Approximately half of Breazeale’s forty-eight amateur photos endearingly capture his wife and young sons at home, with handwritten captions such as “Branson’s first trousers” and “Calling kitty.” The rest of the images document the grim duties of a wartime veterinarian, with sobering captions such as “These pens contain 1300 Missouri Mules,” “Shot for losing foot,” “Burial at sea,” and “Loading the dead wagon, Newport News, Va.” At the outset of World War I, the mule was indispensible for moving artillery, ammunition, and other supplies. It’s estimated that during the war more than 500,000 horses and mules were processed for use in Europe, with more than 68,000 killed in the course of action. 

Provenance:
Purchased

… Read the rest

J. H. Breazeale Jr. Photograph Album: Mules of World War I Read More »

H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection

Photograph Collection, Print Collection

C1: 068
1940–1941
178 photographs, 158 film negatives, 13 etchings

C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection (LVA 09_0869_019)

Courthouses were essential in establishing a sense of permanence and rule in early Virginia communities, being not only centers of legal and civic activity but venues for business and barter, playing host likewise to a spectrum of community-building social activities such as picnics and games. In the winter of 1940–1941, the Virginia-based Hirst Dillon Milhollen (1906–1970), an etcher by trade and chairman of the exhibits committee for the Washington Society of Etchers, photographed courthouses throughout the commonwealth, the only criterion for inclusion being that the courthouse had to predate 1871 in its construction. The following year, Milhollen privately printed Old Virginia Court Houses, a 100-edition loose-leaf portfolio whose etchings drew upon Milhollen’s own gathering of original photos.

Arrangement and access:
Alphabetical by county. 

Provenance:
Etchings purchased 1973, photos and negatives purchased 1992 

References:
Hirst D. Milhollen, Old Virginia Court Houses (1942)—original limited edition portfolio held in LVA Special Collections 

  • C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
    C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
  • C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
    C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
  • C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
    C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection
  • C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection (LVA 09_0869_019)
    C1:068 H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection (LVA 09_0869_019)

Related resources and collections:
Carl Lounsbury, The Courthouses of Early Virginia: An Architectural History (2005)

… Read the rest

H. D. Milhollen Virginia Courthouse Etching and Photograph Collection Read More »