Please join us at the opening of an exhibit featuring the remarkable, often beautiful and historically important photographs of Martha Blow Wadsworth (1864-1934) from Milne Library’s Special Collections. The event will take place in Milne Library on Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 6-7 p.m., and light refreshments will be served.
“A Camera in 1888: Martha Blow Wadsworth, Chronicler of American Moments” highlights photographs taken during her travels to Alaska with an Army surveying party, to Panama while the canal was being built, and to the American west and southwest (again with an Army surveying party ) — all in the early 20th-century. Through the talented eye of one local amateur, the exhibit illustrates what the consumer camera, introduced in 1888 by Kodak, made possible. It will be on view through December in the lobby of Milne Library.
Ms. Wadsworth was a native of St. Louis who lived in Avon, N.Y. with her husband, Herbert Wadsworth (of the prominent Geneseo family). An avid horsewoman and amateur photographer, she has been described as vivacious, energetic, and adventurous. Thirty-three of her albums, as well as hundreds of glass slides, from which the photographs have been selected were donated to Milne Library in 1976 by nephew-in-law Michael Moukhanoff and are housed with the larger Wadsworth Family Papers collection.
“A Camera in 1888” was curated by Special Collections Librarian Liz Argentieri and Regina Carra ’15, with assistance from Jack Scott ’06. It is part of the larger campus-wide program, 1888 in America: William Trost Richards’ Seascape Contextualized, which opened Oct. 24 and runs through the end of the semester.
