Related
National Photo Company collection
- Title: National Photo Company collection
- Other Title: Herbert E. French photograph collection
- Creator(s): National Photo Company, photographer
- Date Created/Published: 1850-1945; bulk 1909-1932.
- Medium:
whole collection ca. 80,000 items.
ca. 40,000 negatives : glass, and some safety film ; from 4 x 5 in. to 8 x 10 in.
ca. 40,000 photographic prints : gelatin silver ; various sizes. - Summary: The National Photo Company Collection documents virtually all aspects of Washington, D.C., life, including inaugurations, sports, landmarks, conventions, and topics of local interest. During the administrations of Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, the National Photo Company supplied photographs of current news events in Washington, D.C., as a daily service to its subscribers. Herbert French, the National Photo Company owner and a photographer himself, was a member of the White House News Photographers at the time of its founding. He covered the administrations of Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. His collection of portraits includes many prominent officials and social figures. Visitors to the capital, protests and parades, conventions and meetings, events in Congress, inaugurations and White House events, and to a limited extent, world events in general are represented in the collection. Herbert French was particularly fond of baseball, and the Washington Senators are documented thoroughly, especially in years when they were the contenders for the pennant. Similarly he covered horse shows and automobile racing.
- Reproduction Number: ---
- Rights Advisory:
No known restrictions on publication. For information see: "National Photo Company Collection Rights and Restrictions Information,"(https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/res.275.npco)
- Call Number: Guide Record [P&P]
- Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
- Notes:
- Arrangement: Negatives: Arrangement: Organized into four main filing series: LC-F8 (for 4x5 glass negatives); LC-F81 (for 5x7 glass negatives); LC-F82 (for 8x10 glass negatives); and LC-F83 (8x10 safety film negatives). Within each filing series negatives are arranged in original negative number order which, for the most part, is chronological.
- Arrangement: Photographic prints: Arrangement: Organized in 3 series. Arrangement: The albums are arranged chronologically and by subject as LOTs 12281 to 12299. The loose unmounted prints are grouped thematically in LOTs 12337 to 12368. Some mounted prints can also be found in the division's self-indexing browsing files: Biographical File (BIOG FILE), Presidential File (PRES FILE), U.S. Geographical File (U.S. GEOG FILE), and Specific Subject File (SSF).
- Collection title devised by Library staff.
- Most images are captioned.
- Many photographic prints are annotated with the number of the corresponding glass negative. Some of the original negatives have deteriorated over the years, however, and cannot be successfully printed.
- Washingtoniana : photographs : collections in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress / Kathleen Collins. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1989, pp. 147-159.
- Guide to the Special Collections of Prints and Photographs in the Library of Congress / compiled by Paul Vanderbilt. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress Reference Department, 1955, no. 534
- Special Collections in the Library of Congress / compiled by Annette Melville. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1980, no. 170
- Digitized images of selected items from the collection, along with corresponding identifying information, are available through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
- Gift and purchase, from Herbert E. French; 1947.
- Herbert E. French (1883-ca. 1950) was a reporter for Bradstreet Company when he bought the National Photo Company in 1912, adding to the company's resources his own stock of negatives dating back to about 1909. The National Photo Company operated as a news service to newspapers, news distributors, and other photo agencies, including Acme, Wide World, the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), the Central Press Association (Cleveland, Ohio), the Washington Star, the New York Times, and the U.S. Daily. In addition, the National Photo Company provided advertising services to various clients, including the local Chamber of Commerce, and prepared photographically illustrated promotional brochures for commercial, fraternal, and service organizations. Herbert French's business correspondence indicates that he instructed his photographers to go after exclusives, that is, subjects not covered by crowds of other news photographers. He supplemented their output by purchasing photographs from other photographers and news agencies on a regular basis. The company's Washington, D.C., offices were located at 815 H Street NW in its earliest years, then moved to 1212 G Street NW, and finally to 923 F Street NW, where it closed after falling victim to the Depression. French continued his work as a commercial photographer from his home address, 227 Nichols Avenue SE.
- Finding aid available online https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/eadpnp.pp021030
- The original card indexes of the National Photo Company list by subject the 73,500 glass plate negatives which French donated to complement the captioned photographic prints purchased by the Library. The Library may not hold items for all negative numbers in the card index.
- Subjects:
- Format:
- Collections:
- Bookmark This Record:
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005684470/
View the MARC Record for this item.
The Library of Congress generally does not own rights to material in its collections and, therefore, cannot grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute the material. For further rights information, see "Rights Information" below and the Rights and Restrictions Information page ( https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html ).
- Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. For information see: "National Photo Company Collection Rights and Restrictions Information," https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/res.275.npco
- Reproduction Number: ---
- Call Number: Guide Record [P&P]
- Medium:
whole collection ca. 80,000 items.
ca. 40,000 negatives : glass, and some safety film ; from 4 x 5 in. to 8 x 10 in.
ca. 40,000 photographic prints : gelatin silver ; various sizes.
Generally, Guide Records describe large groups of items from which a selection must be made. The individual items in the group may or may not be represented online.
1. Determine whether the desired materials can be retrieved online.
- Select the "About this Item" tab and look for a note about tools for searching the group
- If there is a note such as "Digitized images of most prints along with associated descriptive information are available through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog," try searching the name of the collection in Search All
- Select the "Obtaining Copies" tab for any retrieved items that are of interest.
2. If the desired material cannot be retrieved online:
- A visit to the Prints & Photographs Reading Room may be necessary. You may wish to discuss access to the group of images with reference staff. General information about service in the reading room is available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/info/001_ref.html and contact information is available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/address.html
- Call Number: Guide Record [P&P]
- Medium:
whole collection ca. 80,000 items.
ca. 40,000 negatives : glass, and some safety film ; from 4 x 5 in. to 8 x 10 in.
ca. 40,000 photographic prints : gelatin silver ; various sizes.
Please use the following steps to determine whether you need to fill out a call slip in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room to view the original item(s). In some cases, a surrogate (substitute image) is available, often in the form of a digital image, a copy print, or microfilm.
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Is the item digitized? (A thumbnail (small) image will
be visible on the left.)
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Yes, the item is digitized. Please use the digital image in preference to requesting the original. All images can be viewed at a large size when you are in any reading room at the Library of Congress. In some cases, only thumbnail (small) images are available when you are outside the Library of Congress because the item is rights restricted or has not been evaluated for rights restrictions.
As a preservation measure, we generally do not serve an original item when a digital image is available. If you have a compelling reason to see the original, consult with a reference librarian. (Sometimes, the original is simply too fragile to serve. For example, glass and film photographic negatives are particularly subject to damage. They are also easier to see online where they are presented as positive images.)
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No, the item is not digitized. Please go to #2.
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Do the Access Advisory or Call Number fields above indicate that
a non-digital surrogate exists, such as microfilm or copy prints?
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Yes, another surrogate exists. Reference staff can direct you to this surrogate.
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No, another surrogate does not exist. Please go to #3.
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If you do not see a thumbnail image or a reference to another surrogate, please fill out a call slip in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room. In many cases, the originals can be served in a few minutes. Other materials require appointments for later the same day or in the future. Reference staff can advise you in both how to fill out a call slip and when the item can be served.
To contact Reference staff in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room, please use our Ask A Librarian service or call the reading room between 8:30 and 5:00 at 202-707-6394, and Press 3.
