Between the Covers

Hardcover. Quarto. Blind-stamped sheep titled in gilt on the spine, marbled endpapers. Two mezzotint engravings by John Sartain: of Rev. Mark Hopkins (President of Williams College), and Rev. Albert Hopkins (Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy). Splits at the top and bottom of the joints, rubbing on the binding, overall very good. The album contains 56 salted paper print portrait photographs, consisting of: a frontispiece with an outdoor group portrait of members of the Society of Natural History, a portrait of Professor Paul A. Chadbourne (who later became President of Williams from 1872-1881), and 54 students in the Class of 1857. Each of the portraits measures approximately 3" x 5". Most are oval in shape. All of the portraits are identified (although in a few cases, the identification is hard to read), some with additional brief biographical information (presumably supplied by one of the classmates), and most are signed by the subjects. The book contains an important frontispiece salt print (5.5" x 7.5") that is a group photograph of a "Florida Expedition" of 15 students led by Paul Chadbourne. This expedition or field trip was undertaken between February and April of 1857. It first went to Georgia and then to the western coast of Florida for the purpose of studying natural history and making collections. It was an effort by the Williams College Lyceum (the first in the nation) to add to the collections of the college. The participants are shown in their field gear with instruments. At least seven of the participants went on to careers in science. An excellent photographic record. Salt prints are by their nature more fugitive than most other then-contemporary photographic processes, and aside from the borders of these images, where the glue affixing them to the pages has interacted with the paper and lightened the borders somewhat, the portraits are expressive and immediate. This is late in the use of salted paper prints (better known as salt prints), which were the first commercially viable print process on paper and which had been introduced by William Henry Fox Talbot around 1841. They had all but faded away by 1860 (in more ways than one, as the images faded badly if exposed to light for extended periods) after the more stable albumen print had been introduced around 1851. A very nice album of salt prints. A complete list of the students is available on request.

Item #400915