Men in front of Nassau Hall before 1911.

10,000 Glass Plate Photographs That “Captured What Mattered”

By Wendy Greenberg | Photographs Courtesy of the Collection of the Historical Society of Princeton

From “portrait of woman with lacy dress” (Plate No. 1) to “large group of men on porch” (Plate No. 10,065), the Rose Collection held by the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP) offers a visual medley of life in Princeton from 1873 to 1951.

Spanning 78 years, the collection of some 10,000 glass plate negatives is the work of three generations of a family of photographers, and goes back to a time when women wore cascading floor-length skirts and hats, to an engineering building (Green Hall) on Washington Road, to the former Nassau Elementary School, to portraits of Princeton families, and to vintage scenes of ordinary residents riding bicycles with oversized front wheels.

Civil War veteran Royal Hill Rose’s professional Princeton photography studio marked a time when amateur photography was not common, and ended when amateur photography was more common. During those years, as the business passed through three generations, thousands of photographs of Princeton life were taken — of the elite and the hard-working, athletes and professors, city streets and farms, and everything in between.

Princeton Battle Monument under construction.

The collection’s extensive portraits range from former Princeton University (and U.S.) President Woodrow Wilson seated in a chair; to Philip Diggs, the first African American policeman in Princeton borough; to a group of ladies related to J.P. Morgan. There is a portrait of Princeton University athlete Hobart “Hobey” Baker, Class of 1914, taken in 1910; a visiting Mark Twain in 1900; costumed actors from Theatre Intime in 1920; and Booker T. Washington with a group in 1914. There are wedding photos; “1919 or 1920” construction of the Princeton Battle Monument; a group of stone masons; and a series of Nassau Street photos that show “the mix of change and stability in downtown,” according to Princeton History, the journal of the Historical Society of Princeton (Volume 16, 2000).

In March 1998, HSP mounted an exhibition, “Practical Photographers: The Rose Family Studio,” that was celebrated in a special edition of Princeton History, which HSP considered a sort of catalogue for the exhibition. In the Rose Collection about 1,400 photographs have been digitized, with roughly 400 of those searchable through a public digital database. The rest are accessible at the HSP using internal inventories and reference thumbnails, says Stephanie Schwartz, HSP’s curator of collections and research. The original glass plates are preserved off-site and are not available for handling.

The Royal Hill Rose photography business began at 60 Nassau Street in 1873, and Rose lived in the apartment above the studio with his family. The business moved to 34 Nassau Street in 1881. An April 16, 1881, an article in the Princeton Press says, “Mr. Rose has completed his new photographic gallery and reception rooms, in the Post Office building. They are not only the finest ever seen in Princeton; but the finest in the State.”

Rose was not averse to advertising his services. In a January 15, 1876 Princeton Press advertisement, he called himself a “Practical Photographer,” and pitched, “Views of Buildings, Landscapes etc., Copying Old Pictures to Any Size. Views of College and Seminary Buildings Constantly on Hand,” and in another ad declared “Students (sic) Rooms a Specialty.”

The Rose Family

In his early years Rose, a Hudson, N.Y., native, worked with Newark photographer Edward Stoutenburgh from 1865 to 1868, and worked for his wife’s stepfather in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., before relocating in Princeton.

The family made an impression. According to Princeton History (Volume 16, 2000), Rose was a “respected member of the business and town community,” serving on Princeton Borough Council as commissioner of streets, the Hook and Ladder Fire Company, and the Princeton Continentals, a precursor of the National Guard.

His son, Royal Cutting Rose, joined the business around 1889, and was also a respected community member as a fireman and musician in the town band.

When Royal Hill Rose died in 1918, the business continued as R.C. Rose & Son until grandson Carlton Wallace Rose Sr. closed the business in 1951.

Princeton Grammar School at 185 Nassau Street.

The Significance of the Collection

The collection is treasured for its longevity, says HSP Executive Director Elizabeth Monroe. “While many historical societies and museums own glass plate negatives, I believe ours are extraordinary for how they speak to the collective efforts of multi-talented and dedicated people who ensured their creation and survival for over 100 years. Technically and artistically striking, they speak to the skill of a local, multigenerational family of photographers who devoted their careers to producing the negatives. Given their sheer number — 10,000 — and their inherent fragility, these glass plates are also testimony to the foresight of successive caretakers who carefully preserved them.

“We at HSP feel lucky to be the current custodians of this remarkable visual historical record, which both enhances our sense of place within the Princeton community and presents an unparalleled opportunity to connect the past with the present.”

Part of the collection’s significance is its place in the history of photography. According to the Princeton History volume, “An intact group of so many glass plates is unusual in itself, but the Rose Collection is particularly significant because it consists of images of the Princeton community created by three generations of one family. These photographs are especially important because they are the work of professional rather than amateur photographers, and the collection demonstrates the wide range of work required for the studio to remain a stable business.”

As described in the journal by a Rose family descendant, there was much work to be done before a portrait was taken, including props and lighting, and then there were the challenges of exposure time depending on available light. There was no capacity for enlargements, so negatives were created in different sizes. The glass plates in the Rose Collection, according to the journal article, range from 4 by 5 inches to 14 by 17 inches.

Children and a priest at St. Paul’s Convent.

The Wet Plate Process

Gary Saretzky, a historian and photographer who is considered an expert on 19th century New Jersey photographers, and who was involved in the printing of the negatives, explained that the collection is significant because “it’s three generations of a family and covers this incredible period. In the early period before 1880 there were few amateur photographers, when the studio opened in Princeton in 1873.

“If you wanted a photograph you went to a photographer. The town photographer was very important,” says Saretzky.

The 1880s and especially the 1890s saw the rise of amateur photographers, but professionals took photographs of events, portraits, and photos for newspapers. Until the 1880s and 1890s, only professionals knew how to do it, he adds.

The proximity of Princeton University helped the Rose Studio with its business. “They didn’t do class photos, but did views, athletes, portraits, professors, etc. It got more business for a town of its size,” Saretzky notes.

The place of glass plates in the history of photography is noteworthy. The type of negative used from 1850 to about 1880 was collodion, “the wet plate process.” “Collodion negatives, explains Saretzky, were prepared by the photographer from a sheet of glass, coated just before use with light-sensitive material. You would take the picture before the plate dried. They were developed immersed in an acid solution, and fixed using chemicals, and coated with varnish.

“If you were going somewhere else, you had to take along a darkroom, such as in a covered wagon,” he says. “After focusing the camera lens, you inserted the negative holder with the glass plate, protected from light with a dark slide which you pulled to expose the negative. Then you put the slide back and took the negative back to the darkroom for development before the coating dried.”

 Collodion, preceded in popularity by the daguerreotype, was succeeded in about 1880 by the gelatin dry plate negative, which came ready to use, was more sensitive to light, and often eliminated the need for a tripod, explains Saretzky, who has an extensive website (Saretzky.com) listing early New Jersey photographers and other photo history information. He will be speaking about 19th century Cuban-born New Jersey photographer and inventor Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus on October 1 at the Ocean County Library, Jackson Branch.

Wedding portrait.

A Community Effort

Cataloging the Rose Studio Collection is an ongoing process, notes Schwartz. “What’s been digitized so far is just a sliver of the full collection, and we’re under no illusion that we’ll ever identify every photo. But each new detail sharpens our understanding of Princeton’s past, and there’s still a lot left to uncover. We’re always looking for people who might see something we’ve missed.”

The Firestone Library at Princeton University gave the collection to the HSP in 1994, after storing it for more than 40 years. Because of the loss of records, and the age of the images, the HSP encouraged visitors to the 1998 exhibition to contribute identification.

And so, the exhibit became a sort of community effort. “When HSP acquired the Rose Studio Collection in 1994, we took custody of nearly 10,000 glass plate negatives. Many were unlabeled, and few studio records survived,” says Schwartz. “Staff and volunteers spent years rehousing the plates, creating reference thumbnails, and inventorying what we had. That foundational work made the collection usable and gave us a place to begin. But even after decades of effort, we’ve only just scratched the surface of what this collection might tell us. Thousands of images remain undigitized, and many are still unidentified.

“That’s where the broader community stepped in. During our 1998 exhibition highlighting the Rose Studio, we invited visitors to help identify unknown subjects. People recognized storefronts, relatives, and street corners — offering names and context that we couldn’t have supplied ourselves. Their input helped reattach stories to images that might otherwise remain anonymous.”

Girls’ basketball team, c. 1920s.

Capturing What Mattered

“The Rose Collection captures nearly 80 years of everyday life in Princeton,” continues Schwartz, “from the 1870s through the first half of the 20th century. Because the Roses were commercial photographers — not hobbyists or documentarians — they photographed what people hired them to photograph. That’s what makes the collection so valuable: it captures what mattered to the community at the time. There are formal portraits, yes, but also storefronts, landscapes, dorm rooms, civic groups, athletic teams, parades, school events, street scenes, and family milestones. What emerges is a view of Princeton that’s more varied — and frankly, more honest — than we typically see from institutional archives. We see a growing immigrant population, a local economy adapting to new technologies, and neighborhoods that no longer exist. The images show a town in motion, shaped by the local businesses, working families, and community organizations that don’t always show up in the official record.”

Princeton has a place in the history of photography. Saretzky wrote in an article, “Nineteenth Century New Jersey Photographers” (Revision of illustrated article in New Jersey History, Fall/Winter 2004), that although other New York or Philadelphia lensmen visited the Princeton area, “of those nineteenth century photographers who stayed in Princeton, R.H. (Royal Hill) Rose stands foremost.”

“Other photographers came and went, but Rose was the main photography business,” he said recently. “The collection is a wonderful archive of life in Princeton.”

Studio photograph of a polo team.