Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Larkin family photograph collection must be obtained from Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Preferred Citation

Larkin family photograph collection, C0126, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Collection donor unknown.

Processing Information

Processed by Special Collections Research Center staff. EAD markup completed by Eron Ackerman and Jordan Patty in August 2009. Processing and EAD markup updated by Elizabeth Beckman in October 2017.

Historical Information

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, photography was moving beyond experts and studios and becoming more widespread among non-specialists. Describing Kodak's invetion of Eastman gelatin film in 1886, Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O'Connor say, "This process, in combination with the dry gelatin emulsion and Kodak's complete developing and printing service, encouraged amateur photography to boom" (45). Earlier popular photographic varieties such as tintypes (images on laquered iron common in the United States in the mid-to-late 1800s) and albumen prints (created using an egg-white emulsion common in the later 1800s) were gradualy overtaken by gelatin silver prints as the main photographic medium in use by professionals and amateurs alike (Ritzenthaler and Vogt-O'Connor, 33-48). As the Victoria and Albert Museum's page on photographic processes notes, gelatin-silver prints "by 1895 had generally replaced albumen prints because they were more stable, did not turn yellow, and were simpler to produce" ('Photographic Processes'). The cyanotype, created using the same process used to make blueprints, never quite achieved the popularity of any of these processes (see Ritzenthaler and Vogt-O'Connor, 33-34).

Scope and Content

This collection contains dozens of family photographs from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, exhibiting a range of early photographic technology including albumen prints, tintypes and cyanotypes, as well as gelatin silver prints. A few of the photographs have been hand-tinted. Several photos contain inscriptions of photo studios--including G. W. Davis and Unique--with addresses indicating that many of them were taken in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, or Richmond, VA. The photographs range from professional studio portraits to informal group pictures, which appear to have been taken in more rural locales. Several of the photos show Victorian interiors and exteriors as well as horse carriages, row-boats and railroad tracks. Few of the subjects are identified, but photo-envelopes with the collection include the names Ceyton R. Larkin, Charles Rozier Larkin, Paul S. Williams, and Mrs. J. L. Johnson.

Arrangement

Organized largely by photograph type.

Related Material

Special Collections Research Center also holds the John Rapp, Jr. photograph collection.

Index Terms

Subjects:

• Domestic life. Washington (D.C.)

Document Types:

• Albumen prints.
• Cyanotypes.
• Portraits.
• Tintypes.

Adjunct Descriptive Data