Today's Photo of the Week is the charming, daisy-scattered cover of an 1891 "viewbook" of Brooklyn photographs taken by Adolph Wittemann of the Brooklyn-based printing firm The Albertype Company and titled "Brooklyn: Photographs in black." The Albertype Company was co-founded by Adolph and his brother Herman in 1890 and utilized new photographic techniques such as the eponymous albertype, which allowed for creating many prints from a single negative.
Herman owned the company, and Adolph took many of the photographs that they printed, though they also hired other agents and printed images created by other companies. Given that the company was based in Brooklyn, this book is all photographs of the then-independent city, and it's credited to Adolph, it seems likely that he took these photographs himself. They consist of street scenes, views from tall buildings, and Brooklyn landmarks such as Borough Hall, Prospect Park, the main post office and more.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
Post a Comment
While BPL encourages an open forum, posts and comments are moderated by library staff. BPL reserves the right, within its sole discretion, not to post and to remove submissions or comments that are unlawful or violate this policy. While comments will not be edited by BPL personnel, a comment may be deleted if it violates our comment policy.
eNews Signup
Get the latest updates from BPL and be the first to know about new programs, author talks, exciting events and opportunities to support your local library.