Photographer James Wallace Black

Subject: 

Unidentified

c1862

Photographer:  

J. W. BLACK.

173 

WASHINGTON ST.

BOSTON.

The young woman wasn't identified but her dress was beautiful and the backstamp belonged to an important early American photographer.

James Wallace Black was born in 1825 in Francestown, New Hampshire.  His father died in 1838 when he was just 13 and James took work where he could find it, working first in a tannery and then in a cotton mill before learning daguerreotypy.  In Boston he operated a rotary buffing machine used to polish the silver coated daguerreotype plates at L. H. Hale’s gallery before finally becoming an apprentice to John Adams Whipple, a well known Boston photographer.

In 1856 Black became a full partner under the name Whipple and Black. During this time he honed his portrait skills and became known for capturing the essence of his subjects, but even though J. W. Black took the photographs of some very notable people and was very good at it, it was the photos he took outside of his Boston studio that made him famous.

On June 9, 1859, James Wallace Black (34) married Frances “Fanny” Georgiana Sharp (26), the daughter of painter and lithographer William Sharp. This was the same year he took the photograph of the abolitionist John Brown, and the year Brown led his raid at Harper’s Ferry.

In the fall of 1859 Whipple and Black ended their partnership and soon afterwards Black purchased the studio at 173 Washington St., Boston and entered in a partnership with daguerreotypist Perez M. Batchelder.

In March of 1860 the publishing firm of Thayer and Eldridge commissioned James Black to do a photograph of poet Walt Whitman to promote his 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.

But it was on Oct. 13, 1860 that James Wallace Black made history, when, with the help of  balloon navigator Samuel King, they went up in the hot air balloon Queen of the Air, and tethered 1200 ft. over Boston, Black took the first successful aerial photograph in the United States.  Black’s photograph would later catch the attention of Oliver Wendell Holmes who gave it the title: Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It.

In 1861, James and Frances Black had a daughter, Olive Parker.  The following year Black dissolved his partnership with Batchelder and for a time he enjoyed solo success (it was during this time of “solo success” that I think my photograph was taken, 1862 - 63), before he partnered with John G. Case from July 1864 - Feb. 1867, as Black and Case, Photographic Artists, at 163 and 173 Washington St., Boston, Massachusetts.

On March 11, 1867, a son Otis Fisher was born to James and Frances Black.

In 1869 James Black would take another well known photo … the last known photograph of Col. Kit Carson.

In the 1870s Black began to focus more on the Magic Lantern, a candlelight powered projector and a predecessor of the slide projector.

One evening, while Mr. J. W. Black of Boston, and his assistant, Mr. J. L. Dunmore, were about to begin a lantern exhibition, one of the gas bags (the lamp on the lantern projector was gas fuelled) exploded with tremendous force.  It threw Mr. Dunmore high in the air, burning him about the face and eyes; knocked Mr. Black senseless; drove a stick through the nose of the organist and damaged the organ loft, organ and church.  It was feared Mr. Dunmore would lose his sight but he recovered and a few years later Mr. Black and Mr. Dunmore became partners.

In 1872 Black captured panoramic views of the ruins after the Great Boston Fire.  These images which were published nationally are probably the images for which he is best known.

In 1874 Black changed the firm name to Black and Co. and in 1876 he partnered with his friend and former assistant, John L. Dunmore. By the late 1870s Black and Co.’s business consisted largely of lantern slide production.

James Wallace Black (70), was still doing business when he contracted pneumonia and died in Cambridge,  Massachusetts, Jan. 5, 1896.  He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts

His photographs can be found in the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Public Library, to name a few.

His daughter, Olive Parker Black became a landscape artist; his son, Otis Fisher Black became a chemist and taught at Harvard Medical School after closing his father's business in 1901.

Sources:

• James Wallace Black Photographs - Boston Public Library
• Smithsonian American Art Museum
• CivilWar@Smithsonian
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art - James Wallace Black
• Historic Camera - James Wallace Black
• Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography edited by John Hannavy
• Wikipedia - James Wallace
• Catchers of the Light: The Astrophotographers' Family History by Stefan Hughes