Glass Negative Collection

Series

Glass Negative Collection

• Exact dates unknown. ca. 1870s – early 1900s (Creation)

Quantity: 7 buff glass negative boxes (11 x 6 x 4 ½ ), 315 glass plates
1 buff 3-ring box (12 x 13)

Arrangement: Negatives with names are arranged alphabetically; negatives without names but with numbers are arranged numerically; negatives without names or numbers are arranged in the order of women, children, and men, ending with four historic photographs of downtown Grinnell, both before and after the fire of 1889.

Background Note: Grinnell photographer Arthur L. Child (1854-1938) opened his photography studio, the Child Art Rooms, in 1881. The original studio had been established by Child’s uncle, photographer Charles Walker, in 1869. Child, who had taken over his uncle’s business, found the studio too small and dated, so he built a larger, more modern studio on Walker’s original site in 1883. The Child Block was located on the west side of Broad Street, between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. Child retired in 1935.

Approximately 100 glass negatives in this collection were donated by Ellen Barnes Bishop in 2006. This group includes a photographic plate of Carrie Grinnell, which, along with three other negatives (woman Allie Chamberlain, woman “no name,” and young girl “----m Cass” (likely Myrtle Marguerite Cass) were printed and are included in Box # 8 as the last page insertion.

The remaining glass negatives were originally donated to the Grinnell Historical Museum by Larry Pinder, who found them in 1974 on the second floor of the Child Art Rooms just before the studio was demolished to make room for an addition to the present-day Wells Fargo Bank (Jewel Box Bank).

All the negatives are digitized and available in DCL’s staff docs under “Digital Archives,” “PHOTO Child Glass Plates Coll #145.” The prints are gathered in Box #8 of this collection, along with their digital archive numbers, which differ from the numbers that appear on the plates themselves.

Donated by: Ellen Barnes Bishop; Larry Pinder; Grinnell Historical Museum.

Name of Preparer: Liz Cabelli
Date of Preparation: 10/25/2016; 11/27/2018