Another Archives collection scanned

They are the cartes-de-visite of Medical Museum specimens. Labeled and arranged by specimen number, they were used as illustrations in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (online and downloadable from the Internet Archive). Taken by museum photographers William Bell and E.J. Ward. There are a little over 700 of them.

Here's an example:

On a couple of nondescript stereographs

Here's a couple of stereographs I bought over the weekend, due to their rough relationship to the Museum:


The 'Dutch Courtship' was probably intended to be humorous.


This crowd scene is meaningless now without its caption.

So, why did I buy these?




Both are by William H. Rau.

So?

He was William Bell's son-in-law. Bell was the Museum's best photographer of the 19th century who took photographed many of the Civil War soldiers at the Museum. He was the subject of a small exhibit at the American Art museum last year.

Civil War photos from Museum on display in Smithsonian

Toby Jurovics, a curator of photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, borrowed some William Bell pictures from us last year. Bell's work is often confused with the more famous Matthew Brady. They're on display in a small gallery of Civil War photos, along with more famous pictures by Gardener and Sullivan.

Here's roughly how they look although I should have turned the flash off:

New Bell Daguerretoype acquired and finding aid added to website.

The museum has acquired an 1852 daguerreotype taken by William Bell, chief photographer for the Army Medical Museum during and after the Civil War. Bell took many of the pictures included in the collection of Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens and provided his work to Matthew Brady's gallery. The daguerreotype, in a pristine leather case with a velvet lining embossed with "W. Bell, Jenny Lind Gallery, 86 N Second St, Phil[adelphia]" shows a man with ptosis (drooping eyelid). This acquisition was made with the generous assistance of Frederic A. Sharf.

We updated the finding aid for Bell's collection done a few years back by intern Rudolf D'Souza and posted it to the website as well. You can see more of Bell's scenery pictures from the 1882 expedition to photograph transit of Venus (and his obituary) on the website too.