BIO
Gary Saretzky

Archivist, educator, and photographer. Monmouth County Archivist since 1994. Taught history of photography at Mercer County Community College from 1977 to 2012. Consultant in archives and photographic conservation. Lecturer, Horizons Speakers Bureau, since 2003. Published articles include, “Charlotte Prosch: New Jersey’s First Female Daguerreotypist” and “Margaret Bourke-White: Eyes on Russia.” 

Boy on Horse, circa 1900, Woodstown, NJ. cabinet card. Photo by Julia H Elton. Courtesy of the Gary Saretzky collection.

PROJECT
19^th Century New Jersey Women Photographers
2015

Woodstown, NJ, cdv 1860. Photo by Hannah H Flanagin. Courtesy of the Gary Saretzky collection.

My research on New Jersey’s 19^th century photographers has been ongoing for more than 30 years. An abstract of my regularly updated database with more than 3,000 New Jersey photographers, with a separate list of more than 100 women photographers, is available at saretzky.com. In March 2016, I published “Charlotte Prosch: New Jersey’s First Female Daguerreotypist,” in Garden State Legacy, 31. Prosch came from one of the first families of American daguerreotypists: older brother George was closely associated in daguerreian work with Samuel F.B. Morse, for whom he made a camera in 1839. Her brother Andrew was a distributor of daguerreian supplies. Charlotte opened her daguerreian portrait studio in New York in 1845 and relocated to Newark, NJ, in 1847. In 1849-1850, George Prosch worked for her before opening his own gallery. Charlotte’s gallery remained open until 1854, even after her marriage to Alfred Day. Child rearing probably impacted her career. In March 2016, I published “Charlotte Prosch: New Jersey’s First Female Daguerreotypist,” in Garden State Legacy, 31. (See PDF)

5 Young Women, Phillipsburg, late 1890s. cabinet card. Photo by Jessie Carhart. Courtesy of the Gary Saretzky collection.

During 2016, I gave five public slide lectures through the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities on 19^th century New Jersey photographers, including women photographers, in Scotch Plains, Elizabeth, Trenton, Mendham, and Island Heights. The grant helped support travel to archival repositories.

UPDATE
I am still researching and writing about 19th century New Jersey photographers and giving lectures about them under the auspices of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities through its Public Scholars Project. My lectures, which are customized by county or city, include 19th century women photographers. For example, in a recent lecture on early Trenton, New Jersey, photographers, I discussed Maggie Moses Brown, the sister of Trenton daguerreotypist and photographer Morris Moses. Although she did not have her own studio, Maggie, who was born in New Jersey around 1834-1835, worked as a camera operator for Adolph Beer and Co. between 1878 and 1880. My lecture included slides of cabinet cards from the Beer studio taken around the time she worked there.

Atlantic City, circa 1895, cabinet card. Photo by Amelia Van Buren & Eva Watson. Courtesy of the Gary Saretzky collection.