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Call number
Sc Photo Nineteenth and Early Twentieth century Caribbean
Physical description
8.86 linear feet (21 boxes). 680 photographic prints. 11 photograph albums
Language
Multiple languages; The collection is primarily in English. Some caption information and inscriptions are in Spanish or French.
Preferred Citation
Schomburg Center nineteenth and early twentieth century Caribbean photograph collection, Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library
Repository
Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

The Schomburg Center nineteenth and early twentieth-century Caribbean photographs collection, which dates from about 1855 to 1930, consists of approximately 680 photographic prints and 11 photograph albums. Images in this collection depict agricultural scenes, wilderness landscapes, urban views, and industrial settings, as well as local people, tourists, and foreign business people in the Caribbean.

Biographical/historical information

This collection of photographic prints and photograph albums was compiled from multiple sources by Schomburg Photographs and Prints Division staff.

In the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the technical practice of photography advanced in terms of both camera apparatus and darkroom chemistry. Use of negatives and printed positives became commonplace, allowing for multiple copies of a single image, rather than earlier one-of-a-kind image processes, such as daguerreotype. Paper negatives were less cumbersome and fragile than earlier glass negatives. They also allowed cameras to shrink in size and weight, becoming more portable and better suited to travel photography.

The Caribbean region encompasses the islands, nations, and territories in the Caribbean Sea, which is located slightly north of the Equator and South America; east and southeast of Mexico; and south of the United States. The West Indies are a subregion of the Caribbean comprising the western Caribbean islands, nations, and territories.

The Caribbean was a hub of the Transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Sugar plantations in the region, which were primarily owned and controlled by European colonizers, depended upon the labor of enslaved Africans to function. Though slavery was abolished in the region in 1838 and agricultural crops diversified beyond sugar cane, British, French, Dutch, and American colonial interests persisted there. By the end of the nineteenth century, Black former enslaved people and their descendants constituted significant or majority proportions of the region's population.

Scope and arrangement

This collection, which dates from about 1855 to about 1930 (bulk dates 1860s-1910s), consists of two series: Series I: Photographic Prints and Series II: Photograph Albums.

Images in this collection depict agricultural scenes, wilderness landscapes, urban views, and industrial settings of the region, as well as local people, tourists, and foreign business people pursuing speculative interests in the Caribbean. Very few posed portraits are included. More frequently, photographs show farm workers harvesting bananas, cacao, and sugar cane; people in markets and village squares; military activity; and railroad construction. In most cases, these photographs were likely commissioned by colonizing businesses to promote or document travel to and investment in the region. Evidence of racist perspectives of colonizers and photographers occasionally appears explicitly through harmful captions or Black subjects arranged in demeaning poses in some images.

Specific nations, islands, and territories represented in this collection include: Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Venezuela, Virgin Islands, and the West Indies.

The majority of photographs in the collection were made using gelatin silver processes, though a few cyanotypes, albumen, and salt prints are also included. Most prints and albums measure 5 x 7 inches, 8 x 10 inches, or larger. Most photographers are unknown, but some photographs are credited to Charles Simeon Cazabon, J. F. Coonley, Del Tufo and Co., J. Murray Jordan, A. Malta, W. L. H. Skeen and Co., J. Siza, Robert Soublette and Sons, James Valentine and Sons, and Underwood and Underwood Studios.

The Schomburg Center nineteenth and early twentieth century Caribbean photograph collection is arranged in two series:

  • Series I: Photographic Prints
    circa 1855-1930

    Series I contains approximately 680 photographic prints. Most measure at least 5 x 7 inches and many are mounted on boards. Gelatin silver photographic processes predominate, but some cyanotypes, albumen, and salt prints are also present.

  • Series II: Photograph Albums
    circa 1860s-1905

    Series II contains 11 photograph albums. Most albums are in fragile condition.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

The source of acquisition is unknown for the bulk of the collection, however some items in the collection were purchased from Haskel Hoffenberg in 1982; Ramiro A. Fernandez in 1985; Michael Ayer in 1986; Keith de Lellis in 1986; and Sharon M. Howard in 1991 and 2004.

Processing information

Processed by Heather Halliday in 2025.

Using the collection

Location

Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Photographs and Prints Division Reading Room