Ira Wolff Photographic History Collection
Scope and Contents
The Ira Wolff Photographic History collection contains approximately 7,000 original photographs, along with related periodical clippings and ephemera, acquired by the collector Ira Wolff. The bulk of the photographs date from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, offering insight into the invention of photography, the scientific and technical components of its development, vernacular photographic practices, and the medium’s role in social and cultural documentation.
The collection contains examples of a wide range of photographic and photomechanical processes and photographic formats: albumen prints, collotypes, cyanotypes, carte de visites, daguerreotypes, dye transfer prints, gelatin silver prints, photogravures, photo lithographs, platinum prints, salt prints, stereographs, tintypes, and woodburytypes. The explosion of commercial photography in the 1860s-1870s is documented through numerous cartes de visite, stereographs, and cabinet cards; the rise of amateur photography is documented through multiple examples of early Kodak prints from the 1890s. Images by well-known photographers include an 1844 calotype by William Henry Fox Talbot to numerous 1860s photographs of India by Samuel Bourne. Vernacular photography is heavily represented in the collection, with examples including a hand-painted portrait of an African-American soldier in the Spanish-American war and an early twentieth-century memorial album commemorating a woman who died in childbirth, among numerous other examples.
Dates
- Creation: 1816 - 2000
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1850 - 1950
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research
Biographical / Historical
Ira Wolff worked as an executive at NBC in the 1950s and 1960s before embarking on a career in direct marketing. A longtime former member of the Grolier Club, the New York City bibliophile society, Wolff first amassed a 6,500 item mystery collection, which now resides at the University of California San Diego. He turned his attention to photography after meeting the renowned curator, collector, and companion to Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Wagstaff, through his service on the Grolier Club’s exhibition committee. Wolff acquired the Photographic History collection over the course of several decades from bookstores and dealers throughout the United States and Europe.
Extent
100 linear feet
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Ira Wolff Photographic History Collection contains approximately 7,000 original photographs, along with related periodical clippings and ephemera, acquired by the collector Ira Wolff. The collection details the variety of photographic print processes and photographic formats in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged largely in original order, as it was received from the donor. Some unorganized boxes have been divided into corresponding series. Series are divided by theme, photographic process, or format. Note that many items could have fit into multiple series, but we left items grouped as the donor grouped them. Format and photographic print process are searchable via the subject field.
The collection is arranged into the following series:
Series 1: Thematic Photography Collections
Series 2: Family Photography Archives
Series 3: Calotypes (Talbotypes)
Series 4: Cased Nineteenth-Century Photographs
Series 5: Albumen Prints
Series 6: Gelatin Silver Prints
Series 7: Alternative Photographic Print Methods
Series 8: Photochrom
Series 9: Other Photomechanical Prints
Series 10: Stereographs
Series 11: Postcards
Series 12: Glass Lantern Slides
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired from Ira Wolff, 2007
- Title
- Finding Aid to the Ira Wolff Photographic History Collection
- Status
- In Progress
- Author
- Series 1 and 2 processed by Katie Randall, 2019-2020; Series 4 processed by Kinsey Miller and Katlin Risen, 2021; Mounted Photographs processed by Drew Gaines and Connor O'Hara, 2020 and Kinsey Miller and Katlin Risen, 2021; edited and compiled by Sean Babbs
- Date
- 2019-Present
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections Repository