Baldwin Coolidge Photographic Collection, circa 1878-1917

Description

The Baldwin Coolidge Photographic Collection is comprised of over 2,000 original negatives, copy prints of the negatives, and a small number of original prints. 2,276 of the negatives were digitized. Coolidge developed his prints on delicately toned Aristo paper. Coolidge was active as a professional photographer from the late 1870s until 1917, which time period is congruent with the chronological coverage of the collection. Among the many types of images Coolidge captured, he focused his lens on life in Oak Bluffs, Nantucket, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the streets and buildings of Boston, pastoral and marine views in Windham, New Hampshire and Biddeford, Maine, and vessels of all kinds. Boston, Massachusetts is the best represented locality in the collection. Coolidge photographed the Public Garden, Boston Common, T. Wharf, Trinity Church, Boston Public Library, Salada Tea Building under construction, Christian Science Mother Church, and many other streets and buildings. Coolidge's emphasis tends to be on the street or building as a whole, rather than on specific details. To this extent, his photographs are an excellent record of the urban scene at the turn of the twentieth century, often including pedestrians and other signs of activity usually absent from more rigorously architectural views.He also maintained a summer studio on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, the base from which he made several hundred views of Nantucket, Falmouth, and other Cape Cod communities. He took a series of over fifty images of the staff, students, and facilities of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole.Coolidge's work includes studies of various public libraries by Henry Hobson Richardson; the life-saving stations at Hull, Massachusetts and Biddeford, Maine; farmhouses and scenery in Windham, New Hampshire; and scenes along the Cog Railway and Summit House on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. In other photographs, he focused on working ships, especially fishing schooners. He also captured various photographs related to early American and colonial history.

Source: Guide to the Library and Archives, 7.