Library Record
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Metadata
Title |
Seneca Ray Stoddard collection |
Author |
Stoddard, Seneca Ray |
Year Range from |
1848 |
Year Range to |
1916 |
Object Name |
Manuscript |
Control Number |
07086.2 |
Call Number |
MS 75-002 |
Physical Description |
2.8 linear ft. (8 boxes and 3 oversize folders); photographs; drawings; maps |
Summary |
Arrangement: There is no apparent arrangement scheme for the material. Summary/Abstract: Seneca Ray Stoddard was an American landscape photographer, publisher, and conservationist active in the Adirondack Region of New York State. This collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, maps, and photographs created by Stoddard and accumulated by Maitland DeSormo. The correspondence mainly pertains to advertising in Stoddard's guidebooks. There are lecture clippings, notices, programs, and a diary of a trip Stoddard took to the Adirondacks (1873). Also included are U.S. Patent Office certificates and specifications for improvement on photographic apparatus and for improvement on electrical trolleys, and receipts for photographs and maps deposited with the Library of Congress. There are a number of manuscripts in the collection including "Jan the Golden," "The Hudson River from the Mountains to the Sea," and "The Adirondacks," which includes mounted photographs. Also included are Stoddard wood engravings, a pencil sketch for "The Adirondack Illustrated," and map proofs for guidebooks including maps of Lake Placid, Upper and Lower Saranac Lake, and Lake Champlain from Westport to Burlington. There also are maps of the Adirondack Mountains, a Verplank Colvin reconnaissance map of Tallow or Blue Mountain Lake, and a map of Herkimer, Hamilton, and Montgomery Counties. Biographical/Administrative Statement: Seneca Ray Stoddard, landscape photographer and conservationist, was born in Wilton (Saratoga County), N.Y. in 1843. He was the son of Charles Stoddard, a part-time farmer who also did craft work and lumbering, and Julia Ray Stoddard. Stoddard's childhood home (the Wilton hamlet of Dimick's Corners) was located near Mount McGregor, the highest peak of the Adirondacks' Palmer Range. Following the deaths of Julia Stoddard and an infant daughter in 1854, Charles Stoddard married Laura Cook and two years later moved his family north. By the close of the decade they were living in Burke (Franklin County), N.Y. in Hawk's Hollow, a hamlet on the northern edge of the Adirondacks. Stoddard attended common school in Burke through the age of seventeen. He probably began some training as a carriage painter in Burke as well. In 1861, his family moved to the Albany-Troy area. The following year, Stoddard began work as a journeyman carriage painter for the Gilbert Car Company on Green Island in Watervliet (Albany County), N.Y. Gilbert, a manufacturer of railway cars, employed "ornamental painters" to decorate its coaches with painted panels of landscapes and other scenes. In 1864, Stoddard left the Albany-Troy area to establish his own painting business in the Adirondack lumber-processing community of Glens Falls (Warren County), N.Y. By 1867, Stoddard had ceased advertising as a "Carriage, House, Sign, Banner, and Ornamental" painter, and in October of that year, a local newspaper praised stereographs of Glens Falls scenes executed by "Mr. Stoddard, Photographer." In May 1868, Stoddard married Helen Augusta Potter, the daughter of a wealthy Glens Falls insurance agent and merchant and the couple had two sons. By the summer of 1868, Stoddard was making stereo images of nearby Lake George. He used the wet-plate technology of the day, which required that a photographer of outdoor scenes transport not only a camera weighing fifty pounds or more but also an array of chemicals to "fix" the glass plate negatives after exposure. In 1870, Stoddard lived on Elm Street in Glens Falls, the site of his home and studio for the remainder of his career, and claimed the profession of "landscape painter." Over the next few years he painted and photographed Lake George views. His photographs of these years resemble the landscapes painted by the noted Hudson River School artist John Kensett on Lake George. In 1873, Stoddard photographed and painted in the Adirondacks and published the first of a long-running series of guidebooks to the region, "The Adirondacks Illustrated," in which he expressed Emersonian beliefs about the goodness, beauty, and healing properties of unspoiled wilderness. By 1875, he was selling his images to tourists in area hotels while his painting career was ending. During the 1870s, Stoddard also wrote for the Glens Falls and Troy newspapers (mainly accounts of Adirondack trips and humorous sketches) and took an active role in the New York State Temperance movement, becoming "Grand Worthy Patriarch" of the state organization's "Eastern Division" in 1875. Raised a Methodist, Stoddard hinted at spiritualist beliefs in his earliest writings. Toward the close of his life, he turned away from traditional religious forms, preferring to worship only in "Nature's Temple." From his early writings through the later ones, he also revealed an opposition toward urban living that carried over into antipathies toward both large industrial concerns and immigrant groups. Through the 1870s and into the mid-1880s, Stoddard made hundreds of landscape images on Lake George and in the Adirondacks, also working to some extent in New Hampshire's White Mountains, on the Maine seacoast, in the lower Hudson Valley, and along the Saint Lawrence River. Though Stoddard used the more rapid dry-plate photographic method from the early 1880s, his body of work from the fifteen-year period forms a stylistic whole of serene, light-filled, predominantly horizontal views, with people and buildings treated as sharply defined, often dramatically highlighted forms that are frequently appreciated as abstract, geometric shapes. His views of the Adirondacks in particular preserve the region's social and architectural history at a time when wealthy tourists and elaborate "camps" and hotels were first making their appearance in a region of bark huts, hermits, Native American hunters, logging camps, and hardscrabble farms. In 1878, Stoddard served as a photographer on the New York State Survey of the Adirondacks, where he gained sufficient knowledge to publish his own popular "Map of the Adirondacks" two years later. In 1881, he published another successful map of Lake George. His interest in technology led him to invent in 1882 a camera attachment for use in dry-plate photography and to perfect the "magnesium flash" for taking night photographs. In 1890, he successfully tested this flash in New York City, capturing striking night views of the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Square Arch. From the mid-1880s through the 1890s, Stoddard made a series of photographic trips to Europe, the Near East, the American West and South, and Alaska, achieving financial success by presenting "illustrated" lectures of his travels to audiences throughout the northeastern United States. During this era, he lectured on the Adirondacks as well, showing lantern slides of the early images. His photographs of the Adirondack region fixed the image of the Adirondacks as an earthly paradise in the public mind. In 1891, he helped win a political victory with these images; he delivered his illustrated lecture on the Adirondacks to the sitting New York State Legislature and swayed the body to pass the Adirondack Park Bill. After his wife's death in 1906, Stoddard launched a Glens Falls-based magazine, "Stoddard's Northern Monthly" (later "Stoddard's Adirondack Monthly") with articles and short stories advocating wilderness conservation. In 1908, he married Emily Doty, the family's longtime housekeeper; they had no children. After the magazine failed (1908), Stoddard completed a hydrographic chart of Lake George and his Auto-Road Map of the Adirondacks and the Champlain and Hudson Valleys. Stoddard died in Glens Falls in 1917 [Source: American National Biography (2004)]. Scope and Content Note: This collection consists of correspondence, sketches, manuscripts, and photographs created by Stoddard and accumulated by Maitland DeSormo. The correspondence mainly concerns advertising in Stoddard's guidebooks and notes and correspondence of Maitland DeSormo regarding Stoddard. Also included are Stoddard's calling cards; account books containing record of copyrights; guidebooks; hotel information forms; lecture clippings, notices, and programs; a diary of a trip Stoddard took to the Adirondacks (1873); and Adirondack Mountain Reserve memoranda. There are also U.S. Patent Office certificates and specifications for improvement on photographic apparatus and for improvement on electrical trolleys; receipts for photographs and maps deposited with the Library of Congress; and copies of Arthur Winslow's "Stadia Surveying" and John C. Trautwin's "The Civil Engineers Pocketbook." Manuscripts of Stoddard's which include "Jan the Golden" (4 copies); "Marsa Phil" (2 copies); "The Hudson River from the Mountains to the Sea"; "The Cruise of the Friesland, 1895"; and "The Adirondacks" (contains mounted photos). Also included are Stoddard wood engravings; map sketches; a pencil sketch for "The Adirondack Illustrated"; map proofs for guidebooks including maps of Lake Placid, Upper and Lower Saranac Lake, and Lake Champlain from Westport to Burlington (box 6, folders 1a-17); and maps of Keene Valley; Adirondack Mountains; a Verplank Colvin reconnaissance map of Tallow or Blue Mountain Lake (published by Weed, Parson and Co.); Herkimer, Hamilton and Montgomery Counties; and Whiteface-Saranac River. Finding Aid Note: An inventory is available at the repository. Additional Physical Forms: Some of the maps in Map Folder 2 are photocopies. Restrictions: There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material. Provenance: The collection was purchased from Maitland DeSormo. Processing Statement: This collection's description was enhanced as a part of the New York State Archives Environmental History Virtual Research Collection Project, 2004. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided funding for this project. Subjects: Photographers--New York (State)--Adirondack Mountains Region Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.)--Guidebooks The Adirondacks Illustrated Photographs Engraving Drawing Maps Manuscripts DeSormo, Maitland See also: PRI4963 Stoddard [Collection of photographs mostly of the Adirondacks: Part of the Maitland C. DeSormo collection] and SC17501 Adirondack Collection, 1843-1985, New York State Library, Albany, N.Y.; Stoddard photographs transferred to the Adirondack Experience Historical Photograph Collection and the William West Durant papers (MS 63-258) at the Adirondack Experience Library, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. Container list: BoxDescription: Dates (undated unless otherwise noted) 11Correspondence mainly about advertising in Stoddard's guidebooks March 21, 1873 March 31-May 2, 1887 April 16-May 18, 1888 March 8-May 24, 1892 2Correspondence March 30-April 17, 1893 February 17-May 30, 1894 April 26, 1895 April 14, 1896 March 5-March 11, 1897 January 3, 1901 July 4, 1900 August 2, 1916 Hotel information forms completed for guidebooks (16 pieces) Guidebooks pages (3 pieces) 3Lectures (clippings, notices, programs) 4Brochures and clippings (some are copies) Letter: John Brown to Simon Perkins (copy)January 3, 1848 Letter: John Brown to unknown party (copy)April 6, 1853 Portion of a letter Brochures and clippings (7 items) Adirondack Mountain Reserve memoranda 5U.S. Patent Office certificate and specifications for improvement on photographic apparatusMay 2, 1882 U.S. Patent Office certificate and specifications for improvements on electrical trolleys March 14, 1905 U.S. Library of Congress receipts for photographs and maps deposited according to copyright laws June 14, 1888 6Notes and correspondence of Maitland DeSormo about Stoddard 21Manuscript "Jan the Golden" with editing marks 2Manuscript "Jan the Golden: A Story of the Norse"1902 3Manuscript "Jan the Golden" typescript with editing marks 4Manuscript "Jan the Golden" typescript with editing marks 41Manuscript "Marsa Phil" typescript with editing marks 2Manuscript "Marsa Phil" typescript with editing marks Manuscript "Lex Talionis" typescript with editing marks 3Manuscript "The Hudson River from the Mountains to the Sea" typescript with editing marks 1892 4Manuscript "The Hudson River from the Mountains to the Sea" typescript with editing marks. Includes hand colored mounted photos1892 5Manuscript "The Midnight Sun" typescript with editing marks. Includes mounted photos 6Manuscript "The Midnight Sun: Being the story of the cruise of the Ohio" typescript with editing marks1901 51Manuscript "The Story of Atlantis: Her Crews and Cruise" typescript with editing marks and sketches1890 2Manuscript "The Cruise of the Friesland, 1895" typescript with editing marks1896 61Stoddard wood engravings and pencil sketch for "The Adirondack Illustrated"1874 Proof copy of "The Adirondack's" Letter regarding stage route for "The Adirondack Illustrated" Map "Map of Keene Valley" by O. S. Phelps, removed from "The Adirondack Illustrated"1884 Map proofs for Guide Books 1 aBig Burnt Lake-Crooked Lake Map 2-5Adirondack Wilderness (4 versions) 6Lake Placid and Mirror Lake 7Childwood Park 8Tupper Lake (2 pieces) 9Upper Saranac Lake Upper Saranac Lake, northern end 10Chateaugay Lake Chateaugay Lake-Ralph's 11Gateways 1-16 Gateways no. 1 Gateways no. 9 Photo of rustic mantel on verso 12Gateway no. 14 Ondawa Hotel-LeLand House 13Port Henry mounted with Ticonderoga-Whitehall 14Lake George (14 sections) Lake Champlain from Westport to Burlington 15The Narrows, Lake George 16Lower Saranac Lake Camps on Upper Ausable Lake 17Caldwell-Plattsburgh-Whitehall-Port Henry-Crown Point--Port Kent-Westport-Lake Champlain maps (clipped from printed sources and mounted) 7Van Hoevenberg, Henry, "The Indian Pass: An Adirondack Legend" 1888 Presentation copy of Van Hoevenberg's "The Indian Pass" with letter, Van Hoevenberg to Stoddard 1894 Newspaper clippings; 15 envelopes; 2 Adirondack lectures, 1 containing guidebook notices Diary of trip to Adirondacks1873 Manuscript "The Adirondacks," includes mounted photos Newspaper clipping 8Calling cards Winslow, Arthur "Stadia Surveying"1905 Trautwin, John C. "The Civil Engineers Pocketbook"1881 Account books containing record of copyrights1874, 1879-1914 "The Curse of the Friesland, 1895"1896 Original maps in three map folders in the Stoddard map file PV Drawer 4 Folder 1Maps sketches by those other than Stoddard.undated PV Drawer 4 Folder 2Maps by Stoddard (with notations) Adirondack map (7 sections) Warren County map (photocopy) McIntyre-Mt Marcy map (photocopy) Clifton area map (photocopy) Plattsburgh area map (photocopy) Herkimer, Hamilton and Montgomery counties (fragment, photocopied from Asher and Adams map) Black Mountain area map (photocopy) Whiteface-Saranac River Map (photocopy) Hamilton County and adjoining territory map (photocopy) Verplank Colvin map, published by Weed, Parson and Co. (Adirondack Region)1879 Verplank Colvin reconnaissance map of Tallow or Blue Mountain Lake (published by Weed, Parons and Co.)1879 PV Drawer 4 Folder 3Map sketches undated |
Subjects |
Stoddard, Seneca Ray, 1843-1917 DeSormo, Maitland Photographers--New York (State)--Adirondack Mountains Region Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.)--Guidebooks The Adirondacks Illustrated Photographs Engraving, American Drawing Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.)--Maps Manuscripts DeSormo, Maitland |
Relation |
Show Related Records... |
Imagefile |
102\70862.JPG |
Collection |
Adirondack Experience Library |