Michele Hamill

The Stephen and Beth Loewentheil Family Photographic Collection is a spectacular photograph resource in the Rare and Manuscripts Division, Cornell University Library. Abraham Lincoln, the most photographed American in the 19^th century, is well represented in the collection in a variety of photographic processes. Abraham Lincoln understood the value of photography in his political role and as a face of the nation.  He actively sought having his photograph taken and distributed, resulting in photograph types and formats with a remarkable range of appearance, color, texture, and condition. His portraits, recently treated and rehoused in the Conservation Lab, showcase the exceptional value of the Loewentheil collection to explore different 19^th and 20^th century photographic processes and formats from many vantage points. Take a tour of some prominent photographic processes and formats through the iconic image of Abraham Lincoln. A summary of the processes can be found here.

The Loewentheil collection, which brings together a number of Lincoln portraits, has given us the opportunity to develop effective preservation strategies by assessing how each photograph was made, its inherent vulnerabilities, and how it has been affected by time and use. It is a distinct pleasure to work with this collection in the Conservation Lab and contribute to making it available for research, use and instruction.  The Loewentheil photograph collection is particularly rich in the Civil War, African American life, and the rise of the hand-colored photograph.

To learn more about the Loewentheil Collection see: Dawn’s Early Light: The First 50 Years of American Photography (http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/DawnsEarlyLight/index.html).  For more information about identifying and comparing photographic processes, see: http://www.graphicsatlas.org/