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A History of Photography in USC Libraries Collections

Sargassum Bacciferum

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2. Camera machine used by Eadweard Muybridge during his experiments in action photography, ca.1875 Photograph of the camera machine used by Eadweard Muybridge during his experiments in action photography, ca.1875. A large shed is pictured at center, into which a long opening has been made. Twenty-four cameras are visible arranged inside, numbered above on the building from right to left. An apparatus of wire, track and posts is visible on the ground in front of them.; Picture File Card quotes from Beumont Newhall's History of Photography: "Strings attached to electric switches were stretched across the track--the horse, rushing past, breasted the strings and broke them, one after the other--the shutter released by an electro-magnetic control, and a series of images made.", and "Drawings from Muybridges photos were pasted on strips and viewed in a mechanism known as a Zoetrope, a precursor of motion pictures. It was a topless drum which flipped on it[s] side, mounted on a spindle so that it could be twirled. Drawings showing successive phases of action placed inside the drum, and viewed through the slits were seen one after the other, so quickly that the images merged in the mind to produce the illusion of motion. In 1880, using a similar technique with a device he [called] the Zoopraxiscope, Muybridge projected his pictures on a screen at the Cal. School of Fine Arts, San Francisco and produced the first motion pictures.".
3. Fashions (Hat collection) (Old vintage), 1956 1 image. Fashions (Hat collection) (Old vintage), 11 September 1956. Betsy Talbot Blackwell (model); Audrey Clark (model); Betty Koch (model); Richard F. Brown (Chief Curator of Art of Los Angeles County Museum); Pat Keith (model).; Caption slip reads: "Photographer: Miller. Reporter: Waymire. Assignment: Hat collection. Betsy Talbot Blackwell; model Audrey Clark; Model Betty Koch (in 1927 Milan straw). Richard F. Brown, Chief Curator of Art, L.A. Co. Museum , studies 1942 mini-trim. Betsy Talbot Blackwell models new Lynx Sally Victor; Model Pat Keith in 1945 Lilly Dacke".
6. Kodachrome - Adohr & Brandt Dairies, Southern California, 1940.
10. Members of mission household outside rear of mission house, Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, India, ca.1885-1889 "London Mission House, Vizianagram (Back)". View of mission building with staff in fornt. One man holds a horse. A woman stands next to a samll seated child in the doorway.; One of 89 albumen prints mounted on 27 loose album pages, taken or compiled by Sarah Goffin, wife of L.M.S. missionary, Herbert James Goffin (1850-1932). Sarah Goffin sailed to India following her marriage in 1878 and spent the next eleven years at the L.M.S. station at Vizianagaram, before moving on to other districts in India. Engravings based on a number of these photographs appear in the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, including 1886 and 1888.
12. Pupils of Mabumbu school
13. QC-30.015.0031

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Cyanotype photogram, 1843
This cyanotype was created by Anna Atkins in 1843 and it depicts Sargassum bacciferum, a type of algae. Anna Atkins was the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographs and she is regarded as one of the pioneers of the cyanotype process. This process does not require a camera—only sunlight, paper, and chemicals. Invented by John Herschel, a friend of Atkins, a cyanotype is created by hand-sensitizing a piece of paper with iron chemicals, placing it in direct sunlight with objects on top, and fixing the image with just water. There are no silver salts required in this process, and the blue color of the image is a result from the iron in the sensitizing chemicals. A cyanotype is technically a photogram—a negative image in which the shadows are inverted, leaving a white, sun-traced replication of the algae in the midst of a properly sun-exposed blue background. In fact, the cyanotype was the only photographic process developed in the nineteenth century to survive through the 20th century in widespread use, as in the blueprints used by engineers and architects. This technological advancement allowed Atkins to make photography books that enhanced the study of botanical life. Her work represents the beginning of photography as a method to enhance and spread scientific knowledge to a wider public.