A while ago I posted a question on ARLIS-L asking for help finding information about Harpers and Frank Leslie in the 19th century, names of their engravers, and locations of their archives. I have compiled the answers I received. A couple of people expressed interest in knowing more. Thanks to everyone who gave me ideas where to look.
I just received the last negative answer about Frank Leslie archives from NYPL, so I don't know where else to go to ask for those - maybe they don't exist. Although I didn't get a chance to go through all the books below, and the answer may be in one of them, I did suggest to the person doing research to look through the books for that info.
--Peggy Keeran
1) From "A Guide to Publishers Archives in the United States" http://www.sharpweb.org/albinski.html
Harper Princeton University
NY nd, 14 boxes [NUCMC 61-969]
Harper & Bros Columbia University
Boston contract files & financial records
19thc, 13,000 items [Ash 1695]
Pierpont Morgan Library
[James West - smallish]
(Theodore Stanton, UK agent)
Rutgers University
1880-1925, 6,000 items, f/a [NUCMC 66-132]
DLC, rudimentary
(R.R. Bowker, agent)
University of Illinois
G.P. Putnam (London, agent)
6 cuft. [Brichford]
Harper & Row [Chadwyck-Healey mfm]
Columbia University
23,000 items [Ash 1695]
2) I queried several libraries for the archives of Frank Leslie. No luck locating anything.
3) Books:
a) "Frank Leslie (ne Henry Carter) was himself an early engraver at his
publications, as you may know. He developed a factory approach to engraving, where multiple engravers would work on a single illustration--it would be split into blocks and reassembled. Thus, it will probably be difficult to track down exactly who the engravers were.
Madeleine Stern claims in one of her biographies of Mrs. Frank Leslie, Purple
Passage, that at the height of the Leslie empire in the late-1860s, about 70
engravers worked on 6 different Leslie publications. You may also want to
check the following source, which details Leslie's early career and how he brought "pictures to paper":
Gambell, Budd Leslie. Frank Leslie and His Illustrated Newspaper 1855-1860. U of Michigan Dept of Library Science, 1964."
b) "good source on Frank Leslie's and Harper's Weekly illustrations is Joshua Brown's _Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America_ (U. California, 2002) His notes and bibliography should be particularly useful to you."
c) Author: Pearson, Andrea G.
Title: FRANK LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER AND HARPER'S WEEKLY: INNOVATION AND IMITATION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN PICTORIAL REPORTING.
Citation: Journal of Popular Culture 1990 23(4): 81-111.
Abstract: Surveys the advent of pictorial newspaper reporting in the American Civil War era. Founded in 1855, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper led the way in the use of pictures in American journalism, established the criteria for conveying to the reading public a sense of accuracy in news pictorials, and created public trust in news illustrations. Founded two years later, the Harper's Weekly magazine followed Frank Leslie's lead, and both publications made extensive use of "special" artists reporting from the front during the Civil War.
d) "Main author: Harper, J. Henry (Joseph Henry), 1850-1938.
Title: The house of Harper; a century of publishing in Franklin Square,
by J. Henry Harper.
Published: New York, Harper & Brothers, 1912.
Main author: Abbott, Jacob, 1803-1879.
Title: The Harper establishment : how books are made / by Jacob Abbott
; new introduction by Joel Myerson and Chris L. Nesmith.
Edition: 1st ed., reprinted with added material.
Published: New Castle, Del. : Oak Knoll Press, 2001.
Main author: Stauffer, David McNeely, 1845-1913.
Title: American engravers upon copper and steel, by David McNeely
Stauffer.
Published: New York, B. Franklin [1964]
Physical details: 3 v. illus., ports. 27 cm.
Main author: Baker, William Spohn, 1824-1897.
Title: American engravers and their works [microform].
Published: Philadelphia : Gebbie & Barrie, 1875.
Main author: Creps, Bob.
Title: Biographical encyclopedia of American painters, sculptors &
engravers of the U.S. : colonial to 2002 / compiled by Bob Creps ;
edited by Howard Creps ... [et al.].
Edition: 1st ed.
Published: Land O' Lakes, FL : Dealer's Choice Books, Inc., c2002.
e) The Harper Brothers archive is at Columbia University. There is a microfilm version available through Inter-Library Loan at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago."
f) I have been doing quite a bit of research on British wood engravers and
illustrators, and there are a few sources available, however, American wood
engravers seem to be an elusive bunch. You may try a few publications:
f1. American Wood Engraving : A Victorian History by William J. Linton
(himself a respected wood engraver and art director for Frank Leslie) this
is a reprinting of the 1882 original. Published in 1976 by the American Life
Foundation & Study Institute.
f2. The Harper Establishment by Jacob Abbott, a reprint of the original 1855
edition, published by Oak Knoll Press in 2001.
f3.The art of the American wood-engraver by Philip Gilbert Hamerton; James
Beebee Carrington, 1894, Charles Scribner's Sons.
f4. Early American book illustrators and wood engravers, 1670-1870;
a catalogue of a collection of American books, illustrated for the most part
with woodcuts and wood engravings, in the Princeton Library. by Hamilton,
Sinclair.
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1968, ©1958
g) John Castagno's "Artists as Illustrators: An International
Directory With Signatures and Monograms, 1800-present," (Metuchen, NJ &
London, The Scarecrow Press, 1989) designates which artists worked for
Harper's Magazine; however, it would be tedious to go through each
listing to find the HA (Harper's) symbol under each artist's name. It
does not index Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Also try "The
Origins of Graphic Design in America, 1870-1920," by Ellen Mazur
Thompson and Burton Raffel, they go into FLIN and the engravers.
Peggy Keeran
Arts and Humanities Reference Librarian
Penrose Library
University of Denver
2150 E. Evans Avenue
Denver, CO 80208
Voice: 303-871-3410
Fax: 303-871-3446
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