Southworth & Hawes - Misplaced Pages

Photographic firm in Boston (1843–1863)

Portrait of J.J. Hawes and self-portrait by Albert Southworth, c. 1845–1850

Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843–1863. Its partners, Albert Sands Southworth (1811–1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901), have been hailed as the first great American masters of photography, whose work elevated photographic portraits to the level of fine art. Their images are prominent in every major book and collection of early American photography.

Southworth & Hawes worked almost exclusively in the daguerreotype process. Working in the 8 ½ x 6 ½ inch whole plate format, their images are brilliant, mirror-like, and finely detailed. Writing in the Photographic and Fine Art Journal, August 1855, the contemporary Philadelphia daguerreotypist Marcus Aurelius Root paid them this praise: "Their style, indeed, is peculiar to themselves; presenting beautiful effects of light and shade, and giving depth and roundness together with a wonderful softness or mellowness. These traits have achieved for them a high reputation with all true artists and connoisseurs." He further noted that the firm had devoted their time chiefly to daguerreotypes, with little attention to photography on paper.

History

Personal and public portraits

During their 20 years of collaboration, Southworth & Hawes catered to Boston society and the famous. Their advertisements drew a distinction between the appropriate styles for personal versus public portraiture. "A likeness for an intimate acquaintance or one’s own family should be marked by that amiability and cheerfulness, so appropriate to the social circle and the home fireside. Those for the public, of official dignitaries and celebrated characters admit of more firmness, sternness and soberness." Among their sitters were Louisa May Alcott, Lyman Beecher, Benjamin Butler, William Ellery Channing, Rufus Choate, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Charlotte Cushman, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Dorothea Dix, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Everett, William Lloyd Garrison, Grace Greenwood, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sam Houston, Thomas Starr King, Louis Kossuth, Jenny Lind, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Horace Mann, Donald McKay, Lola Montez, George Peabody, William H. Prescott, Lemuel Shaw, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Sumner, Daniel Webster, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Robert C. Winthrop.

Documenting the birth of surgical anesthesia

On the evening of September 30, 1846, Mr. Eben Frost, suffering from a violent toothache, called upon Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, a dentist at No. 19 Tremont Row, Boston. Dr. Morton administered nitrous oxide and extracted the tooth. Less than three weeks later, the so-called "Death of Pain" took place on October 16, when Dr. Morton administered ether to a patient before Dr. John Collins Warren, senior surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, removed a tumor from his neck. Although it is believed that ether anesthesia had been administered for surgery earlier, most notably by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson Georgia on March 30, 1843, it had been done privately and not reported in the medical literature. Recognizing the historic significance of the introduction of etherization within a hospital setting, the photographic firm of Southworth & Hawes was commissioned to record several ether surgeries subsequent to the Abbott operation. Legend holds that Hawes fell ill from the sight of blood, and was unable to complete the first of these scheduled photo sessions. He did succeed in photographing three surgeries, however, the first on the following December 9, for Dr. Samuel Parkman's treatment of a dislocated shoulder; and a second session on July 3, 1847, capturing three daguerreotype views of Dr. Warren's surgery on a 19-yr-old Portuguese sailor with a diseased fibula. A third photo session captured a young woman, possibly an epulis patient who was scheduled for surgery that same day. Later Dr. Warren presented his Laundy scalpel and probe, the surgical instruments he used in the first operation, to Hawes in gratitude for recording the operations.

Dispersion of the archives

Hawes lived until 1901, continuing to operate a studio and carefully protecting its sizeable archive. The archives were finally dispersed during the Great Depression. Most made their way into three museums (George Eastman Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), while only a comparatively few have ever been privately held. However, on April 27, 1999, a previously unknown hoard of 240 Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes appeared at Sotheby's auction from the estate of David Feigenbaum. The total sales price realized was $3.3 million.

Image gallery

Longfellow family, 1849
Advertisement, 1849 Boston Directory
Rollin Heber Neale, ca. 1850
Unidentified woman, ca.1852
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1857
William Hickling Prescott, ca. 1850
Young girl with portrait of George Washington, ca. 1850

Portrait subjects

Alvin Adams
Brooks Adams
John Quincy Adams
Marietta Alboni
Stephen Allen
Susan B. Anthony
Nathan Appleton
William Appleton
D.C. Bacon
Ellen B. Bacon
Nathan Prentiss Banks
Gaetano Bedini
Henry Ward Beecher
Lyman Beecher
Elise Biscaccianti
George Sewall Boutwell
Henry I. Bowdich
Laura Dewey Bridgman
George Nixon Briggs
Louise Winsor Brooks
Samuel Gilman Brown
Elizabeth Dwight Cabot
Edward Tyrrel Channing
Seth Wells Cheney
Jonas Chickering
Francis James Child
Thomas Childs
James Freeman Clarke
Cassius Marcellus Clay
Henry Clay
C.W. Couldock
Henry Clifford Curtis
Charlotte Cushman
Henry Dexter
Dorothea Dix
John Dixwell
Mrs. F.N. Drew
Rufus Ellis
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edward Everett
Cornelia Conway Felton
Annie Adams Fields
James Thomas Fields
Millard Fillmore
John Fiske
Benjamin F. French
William Frick
Margaret Fuller
William Lloyd Garrison
Mary Gleason
Otto Goldschmidt
Charles Goodyear
Augustus Addison Gould
Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould
Simon Greenleaf
Grace Greenwood
Matilda Hays
James Shuttleworth Haywood
George Peter Alexander Healy
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Mary Wood Hooper
Erastus Hopkins
Elias Howe
James Jackson (1777–1867)
William Jenks
Gerrit P. Judd
Kamehameha IV i.e. Prince Lot Kapuiwa (1830–1872)
Kamehameha V i.e. Prince Alexander Liholiho Iolani (1834–1863)
Sarah P. Keyes
Joseph Kimball
Thomas Starr King
Edward Norris Kirk
Louis Kossuth
Amos Lawrence
Jenny Lind
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
James Jackson Lowell
John S. Lurman
Alice Lyman
Cornelia F. Malchett
Theodore Malchett
Horace Mann
Donald McKay
Mary Minot
Sarah Cabot Minot
Lola Montez
Fannie Morey
Commodore Charles Morris
Rollin Heber Neale
Edwards Amasa Park
Francis Parkman
John Howard Payne
Frank Everett Peabody
George Peabody
Benjamin Peirce
Wendell Phillips
Franklin Pierce
Mrs. G.W. Pratt
William Gardner Prescott
William Hickling Prescott
Ferencz Pulszky
Charles Francis Richardson
Baron James Rothschild
Truman Henry Safford
Leverett Saltonstall
Benjamin Seaver
Daniel Sharp
Lemuel Shaw
A.L. Simpson
William T. Smithett
Jared Sparks
Charles Sprague
Calvin Ellis Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Charles Sumner
Caroline Sturgis Tappan
Zachary Taylor
George Thompson
Edward S. Tobey
Elisabeth Sprague Tobey
John L. Tucker
Katherine Parker Tucker
Ellen Dwight Twisleton
Bennet Tyler
Adrian Vandeveer
Captain Jonathan Walker
James Lester Wallack
John Collins Warren
William Warren
Daniel Webster
Benjamin F. White
Robert Charles Winthrop
John Ellis Wool
Jeffries Wyman

Museums with Southworth & Hawes collections

American Museum of Photography
Amon Carter Museum of Ft. Worth, Texas
Boston Athenæum
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
George Eastman Museum
Historic New England
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

References

^ Grant B. Romer and Brian Wallis (editors) (2005). Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes. Steidl Publishing. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)

External links

Becky Simmons Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes Biography George Eastman House
https://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/sets/72157606223836462/ Works by Southworth & Hawes, from the George Eastman House
https://web.archive.org/web/20090912080225/http://museum.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/southworth_hawes/pages/intro.html Exhibition at the International Center of Photography, 2005
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/hi_southworthalbertsands.htm Works in the Metropolitan Museum
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, works by Southworth & Hawes

42°21′37.32″N 71°3′39.32″W / 42.3603667°N 71.0609222°W / 42.3603667; -71.0609222

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