Collection 1996.5 - Jesse Lowe Smith Image Collection

This is a partial collection of glass lantern slides, photographic plates and negatives (sizes 3” x 4” and 5” x 7”) from the Elm Place School in Highland Park, IL primarily taken by Jesse Lowe Smith, the Superintendant of Schools for use in the school curriculum. The subject matter includes botany and landscape (both local and in the Western part of the United States); Illinois and other historical sites in the United States, especially focusing on Lincoln; and images from overseas, with the bulk from India (focusing on architecture and landscape scenes), and several from Europe (focusing on historical monuments). There are a few miscellaneous plates which appear to be portraits and possibly family photographs. The slides were removed from metal boxes where they had been previously stored and were processed into Hollinger acid-free, metal edged boxes. The slides were examined for condition and subject matter and each slide was compared to the description on its paper sleeve that had been created upon accessioning by the Highland Park Historical Society archivist in 1996. The 5”x7” photographs are black and white, and the 3”x4” slides are both black and white and hand-colored. Many of the 3”x4” slides have hand-written descriptions or notations on the paper margins, presumably by Smith. Many of the 3”x4” botanical slide series were photographed by Smith, but some were by taken E.E. Parratt, a Highland Park photographer, and within these subsets some were hand colored by the artist Charlotte Pinkerton. There are also slides purchased from educational slide companies such as Nichols slides, Stereopticon slides, United Travel slides, Chicago Transparency Company. Several of the plates and slides, as noted in the container list, are broken, cracked or have film peeling from the glass. The broken or cracked images should be handled with extreme care. The damaged 3”x4” slides are item numbers: 0982, 0541, 0569, 0581, 0586, 0593 (badly cracked), 0626 (badly cracked), 0636 (badly cracked), 0656, 0683, 0935 (scratched). There is also one envelope of film negatives (item number 0960) in very poor condition which should not be examined and needs repair because the negatives have stuck together and started to disintegrate upon being touched. Of the 5”x7” glass plates and negatives, the following are broken: 0139, 1038, 0226, with several being broken in many pieces: 0829, 0830, 0831, 0832, 0833, 0834, 0835, 0836.