- No[remove]156
Detroit Publishing Company

Glass negatives and transparencies from the Detroit Publishing Company documenting Savannah, Augusta, Atlanta, and Chickamauga between 1880 and 1911.
More About This Collection
Date of Original
1880/1911
Subject
Cities and towns--Georgia
Historic buildings--Georgia
Location
United States, Georgia, Catoosa County, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, 34.91897, -85.25401
United States, Georgia, Chatham County, Savannah, 32.08354, -81.09983
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
United States, Georgia, Richmond County, Augusta, 33.47097, -81.97484
Medium
dry plate negatives
Type
Still Image
Description
The Detroit Photographic Company was launched as a photographic publishing firm in the late 1890s by Detroit businessman and publisher William A. Livingstone, Jr., and photographer and photo-publisher Edwin H. Husher. They obtained the exclusive rights to use the Swiss "Photochrom" process for converting black-and-white photographs into color images and printing them by photolithography. This process permitted the mass production of color postcards, prints, and albums for sale to the American market.
Late in 1897, Livingstone persuaded the accomplished American landscape photographer, William Henry Jackson, to join the firm. This added the thousands of negatives produced by Jackson to the Detroit Photographic Company's inventory. Jackson's collection included city and town views, images of prominent buildings, scenes along railroad lines, views of hotels and resorts, and the like.
The nation's strong interest in the 1898 Spanish-American War and the expansion of U.S. Naval power accounts for the firm's large inventory of many photographs of Cuba and scenes related to the war and for the hundreds of images of warships.
In the late 1890s, the Detroit Photographic Company expanded their inventory to include photographic copies of works of art, which were popular educational tools as well as inexpensive home decor.
The firm was known as the Detroit Photographic Co. until 1905 when it became the Detroit Publishing Company. William Henry Jackson became the plant manager in 1903, leaving him with less time to travel and take photographs. With the declining sale of photographs and postcards during World War I, and the introduction of new and cheaper printing methods used by competing firms, the Detroit Publishing Company went into receivership in 1924. They liquidated their assets in 1932.
Language
eng
Original Collection
Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection (Library of Congress)
Holding Institution
Library of Congress