Benjamin W. Kilburn

Infobox Person
name = Benjamin West Kilburn


caption = "Benjamin West Kilburn taken in his studio, Littleton, NH in 1891."
birth_date = birth date|1827|12|10|mf=y
birth_place = Littleton, New Hampshire
death_date = death date and age|1909|1|15|1827|12|10|mf=y
death_place = Littleton, New Hampshire
resting place = Littleton, NH Cemetery
known_for = "Old Man of the Mountain" (stereo-photograph of Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch, White Mountains, New Hampshire)
occupation = Photographer Stereoview Publisher

Benjamin West Kilburn (December 10 1827 - January 15 1909) was an American photographer and stereoscopic view publisher famous for his landscape images of the nascent American and Canadian State, Provincial, and National Parks and his visual record of the great migrations at the end of the nineteenth century. Visual historian of immigration and international tourism.

Legislator, New Hampshire General Court. Patent granted for Gun style camera.

Early life

The son of Josiah Kilburn, an iron founder who manufactured Franconia stoves, Benjamin received his education as a machinist in Fall River, Massachusetts, at age 16. After four years, Benjamin returned to Littleton, New Hampshire, to became a partner with his father in the Josiah Kilburn & Son foundry.

Kilburn was a sergeant in Company D, 13th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment, who participated with his unit in the American Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

A mountaineer, Kilburn was active on Mount Washington in New Hampshire; in Ouray, Colorado; and in the Sierra Nevada of California, including Yosemite in 1872.

Photography

Early Kilburn Brothers stereoviews date from about 1865. Published sources attribute their early stereographs (stereo-photographs) solely to Benjamin. His brother, Edward Kilburn (February 271830 - 1884) however, learned the art of photography from a local daguerreotypist, O. C. Bolton, from neighboring Waterford, Vermont at an earlier date.

Photographer O. C. Bolton also taught Franklin G. Weller of Littleton, NH. A local, Weller became a notable stereo-photographer who would introduce comic views of a special local color and pioneer a popular line which appears in later Kilburn subject categories. Bolton was connected with another early stereo-photographer Franklin L. White of Lancaster, New Hampshire who published a view list of glass stereographs in 1859.

Early Kilburn stereoviews were sold by Joseph L. Bates, a retail outlet who specialized in O. W. Holmes stereo-viewers at his location on Washington Street, Boston. He published a Kilburn - Bates stereoview catalog about 1867. The Kilburn list reflected choices similar to those of Franklin L. White. Bates commercial support gave the Kilburn Brothers their first significant push in the marketplace.

Kilburn Brothers and B. W. Kilburn Co.

Their first views were produced in Edward Kilburn's studio in the McCoy Block. The location proved to be too small for their popularity. The early business was a family centered business focused on local subjects and talent.

By 1868, a second larger viewshop was built at the Chutter Block location on Main Street. After the Boston Fire of November 1872, a new factory was built on Cottage Street. The shop was one block from the Littleton railroad station. Young salesmen carried Kilburn views onto the trains and on south to an ever expanding audience. Today the site of the viewshop is a state historic landmark site. They quickly became the world's most extensive manufacturer of stereoscopic views.

Edward Kilburn retired from the partnership about 1877 although their product continued to be identified as Kilburn Brothers until the late 1880s. John P. Soule, another famous stereo-photographer from Washington Street Boston, MA, was closely associated with the Kilburn Brothers. A significant number of his negatives were shipped to the Kilburn business of Littleton in 1881. Benjamin was active in the National Photographic Association.

The new B. W. Kilburn & Company brought many changes in technology and audience. By 1890, Benjamin's second son-in-law, the attorney Daniel Clark Remich had joined the board of the firm as well as James M. Davis, agent for a growing army of door-to-door salesmen. Davis would in later years direct the day to day decisions of the firm. As General Manager, located first in Philadelphia and later in New York City and St. Louis, Mo., he used his cable address "Artistic" to direct production, send photographers to distant lands, and hire a sales force to distribute the views.

The Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 became the high water mark for their business as they acquired exclusive rights to sell stereoscopic views of the World's Fair.

The business was succeeded by W. F. Burns & Co. of St. Louis in 1910 and others.

ources

*Benjamin W. Kilburn at [http://familystacks.com/views/photog.htm familystacks.com]

*Darrah, William C. The World of Stereographs. Gettysburg, PA: W. C. Darrah, 1977

*McShane, Linda. "When I wanted the Sun to Shine": Kilburn and Other Littleton, New Hampshire Stereographers. Littleton, NH: Sherwin Dodge Publisher, L. McShane, 1993(Call number for McShane: TR780.M35 1993 -- An overview of the stereo-photographers of Littleton, New Hampshire, including the Kilburn Brothers, Franklin Weller, George Aldrich, and the Littleton View Company)

*"Granite Monthly", 1909, page 68

*"Stereo World", Vol. 1 #1, 1974, page 1 -

*Wilson, Edward L, et al. "Mount Washington in Winter": Mountain Climbing - Out of Door Library. : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897