John Reid (1835-1911)
1873
Iron Double Track Railway Bridge, Boston & Albany R.R. Over the Connecticut River, at Springfield Mass.

Albumen print
32 x 42 cm (image) 45.7 x 55.7 cm (sheet)
 
Adams Amsterdam Auctions
Photographs - Locomotives & Railroad Bridges, 23 March 2015, Lot: 30
 
On period mount with a printed caption "Designed by Chas. Hilton, Civil Engineer, Albany, N.Y.. Built by The Leighton Bridge and Iron Works, Rochester, N.Y., 1873".
 
Photograph showing the bridge over the Connecticut river at Springfield Massachusetts, probably during the opening ceremony. John Jefferson Reid was an American photographer who specialised in industrial photography. Named "A Famous Photographer of Iron Horses" in the March 1937 issue of Railroad Stories, he is still one of a very few pioneers known by name. His work is hardly ever on the market and we found 15 very fine albumen prints in this collection. Arthur H. Miller, Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections of Lake Forrest College, states: Reid printed his own pictures, with his own rag paper and his own emulsion. They were superior and helped his prints survive when prints by others have deteriorated beyond use: "…[t]here is nothing that can compare with a large, clear original photograph of an iron horse made by John Reid." Railroad companies were among the first to use photography for the documentation and promotion of their work. The photographs were often of a very high artistic level. "Railroads pioneered industrial photography, initially as a way to record their locomotive inventories. Builders employed photographers to document their work. For example John Reid's studio took photos of locomotives built at Rogers, Cooke, and Grant in Paterson, New Jersey, until the last Cooke shop […] closed in 1928. Reid also recorded bridges and machinery" (Brian Solomon & John E. Gruber. Railway Photography).
 
LL/58626