Unlocking a photography mystery

This year I’ll celebrate twenty years working at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, curating the history of photography collection. Started in the 1880s, it is the oldest collection of photography in an American museum, and includes many unique photography collections and related cameras. My current research project is the Hillotypes Collection, early examples of color photography made in the 1850s. Reverend Levi L. Hill worked as a daguerreotype photographer in the remote hamlet of West Kill, New York, in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, and experimented in making color images. The museum has the only set of Reverend Hill’s 62 early color experiments, originally donated in 1933 by Hill’s son-in-law.

With the help of research grants from both the Smithsonian and The Getty Foundation, these earliest of American color photographs have been analyzed by X-ray and infrared technology to determine whether Reverend Hill’s process was a true color process. This has been a huge controversy in the history of photography. In fact, an international competition of sorts was brewing in the mid-1900s to see which country’s photographer would invent the first commercial color photography process, France or the United States.

Little research on the photographs themselves has been done until now. Our current research shows Reverend Hill succeeded in making color photographs, but also hand-colored some with pigments and dyes to better his results. This Smithsonian collection is a truly experimental collection of the earliest color photographs made in America.

My research, and that of my grant colleagues, will continue. What I didn’t expect in the beginning of this research was to find out the Hill’s home in West Kill, New York, was just an hour or so away from where I grew up in Newburgh, New York. Reverend Hill was just one of many early New York photographers working from Manhattan to Albany, and west to the Catskills. There is a strong history of the beginning of American photography in this region. I intend to search it out.

Comments

[LSAT Test Guy]

The story of Rev. Levi Hill is such a dramatic piece of American history. I find myself rooting for him in your research. He was so widely and broadly ridiculed for his claims. I have to confess, it is hard to imagine color back in 1850 when the rest of the world was still hand-tinting daguerreotypes.

Congrats on your grant, I eagerly await your discoveries and hope that Hill's story gets more attention as a result.

[Shaun]

I really enjoyed your read and as a photographer am interested in the history of the subject. A few years ago I visited the Fox talbot museum.

[Kellie]

This is a great photo and article. I am a wedding photographer in wilmington, nc and i just love american history and the photography of our past! I love old photos. My aunt has been giving me some old photos. She was a wedding photographer in her 20's and 30's. She is 90 now! Its amaizing to see the details and whats in the background of the images!

[Thina Doukas Photography Sydney]

Fantastic article. As a photographer in Sydney shooting weddings for the last 9 years, the development of new age technology has shifted us from classic film to now a digital image as you know. Its amazing to see images from way back in tact and in very good condition. Great post will keep updated cheers!

[Abe Jackson Sudan]

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