Oak Knoll

Pair of photochrom photographs. Both photographs are in near fine condition with only the slightest hint of chipping along the edge of the photograph featuring the iconic Yosemite Valley, General View. The photochrom is a color photo lithograph created from a black and white photographic negative. Color impressions are achieved through the application of multiple lithograph stones, one per color. The process was developed in Switzerland and brought to the United States by the Detroit Publishing Company in 1897, which acquired exclusive ownership and rights to the process in America. Anticipating the success of the photochrom for the mass production of color prints, the Detroit Publishing Company recruited William Henry Jackson to become a partner. Jackson joined the company in 1898 as president, bringing with him an estimated 10,000 black and white negatives which provided the core of the company's photographic archives, from which they produced pictures ranging in size from postcards to enormous panoramas. In 1903, Jackson became the plant manager. After a decline in sales during World War I, and with the introduction of new and cheaper printing methods used by competing firms the company was forced into receivership in 1924, and in 1932 its assets were liquidated. In 1936, Edsel Ford purchased Jackson's negatives for "The Edison Institute" (now Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan), and Jackson's negatives eventually were divided between the Colorado Historical Society and the Library of Congress.

We locate no record of holdings of either of these images. (No record found in the Library of Congress (which has four other views of Yosemite); the "William Henry Jackson Photochrom Collection, 1989-1908" at Amherst College (444 images); "The W. H. Jackson Photochrom Print Collection, 1898-1096" at the Newberry Library (which has two other views of Yosemite); or the "William Henry Jackson Photochrom Collection" at Decker Library, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (187 images)). Another sizable holding is at the Huntington Library (approximately 700 photolithographic prints, and 5,300 postcards), acquired in 2006 but yet to be catalogued.