Collecting pictorialism at the Smithsonian 1896–1959

Abstract

In 1896, the Smithsonian Institution officially sanctioned a Section of Photography. Assistant Secretary G. Brown Goode and the Institution's Official Photographer Thomas W. Smillie were influential in the establishment of this new collecting unit within the Division of Graphic Arts. For almost ten years, Smillie had been collecting photographs, cameras, and equipment for travelling exhibitions the Smithsonian had provided to expositions around the nation. As the newly appointed Honorary Custodian of the Section of Photography, Smillie initiated what came to be a superb and in some cases unique collection of objects documenting the history of photography, its science and technology and, last but not least, its art.1 ‘Photographic Collection’, in the Annual Rtport of the Smithsonian Institution for 1897, 76–77.

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