Other Summers

This rare cache of early photographs, salvaged and printed by the author, reveals an authentic view of life in the late 19th century America with a photographic vision that was fifty years ahead of its time. An unposed, candid record of people and activities in rural areas and towns of Pennsylvania and Virginia in the 1880's, these images have a quality of unstrained honesty and freshness that is in marked contrast to the stilted, formal portraits of the period. Professor Leo's text reveals the unconscious artistry of the photographer Horace Engle (1861–1949), a native of Marietta, PA, who was a chemist, promoter, inventor, and researcher at the Edison labs, as well as a lifelong amateur photographer. Engle's pioneering candid photographs—taken with a Gray/Stirn concealed vest camera—display photography's special ability to capture a truly significant moment. This is the basis of much of today's reportorial and documentary photography. Engel's camera, however, had no viewfinder, and offered only one shutter speed and lens opening. His 1888 images, therefore, are remarkable examples of a photographic style which did not come into its own until the era of the picture magazines. Since very few prints made by early detective cameras such as the Gray/Stirn exist, this collection is an impressive example of a very rare photographic type and provides a valuable and authentic view of a vanished past.