Cook, George Smith (1819–1902), George LaGrange Cook (1849–1919), and Huestis Pratt Cook (1868–1951). Archive of photographic negatives from the Cook Studio, Richmond, Virginia, circa 1880 to 1930. About 1,000 pieces. Primarily 8" x 10" glass-plate negatives with a small number of smaller film negatives. Most of the negatives are in individual envelopes or sleeves, many with penciled descriptions. Most of the plates are in good to very good condition, some with typical losses to images; a small number are broken. Housed in 50 hinged-lid archival document cases within 14 bankers boxes, roughly 18 linear feet.

A pioneering photographer, George Smith Cook was born in Stamford, Connecticut, but moved to New Orleans in the 1830s to study art. In 1849 he moved to Charlestown, South Carolina and established himself as a photographer, specializing in studio portraits and views of the South. In 1880, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, leaving the Charlestown studio to his elder son, George LaGrange Cook. The younger George would join the family in Richmond after the 1886 Charlestown earthquake, which he documented in a series of views. Huestis would take over the Richmond studio after their father’s death in 1902 and continued to produce photographs for another three decades.

In 1954, Huestis Cook’s widow sold the entire archive of the studio to the Valentine Museum in Richmond. Over the decades, the Valentine and neighboring Virginia Commonwealth University have mounted several exhibitions of images from the archives, The museum is retaining the majority of the collection – about 10,000 glass-plate negatives, some 1,500 of which have been digitized. This group of about 1,000 negatives represents that fraction of the collection that has not yet been catalogued and was deaccessioned to benefit the Valentine’s evolving mission.

A quick review reveals a wide range of subjects, including studio portraits, views of Virginia, South Carolina, New Orleans, and other locations in the United States (including Baltimore, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.). The Charleston, SC views include images of the 1886 earthquake. There are also photographs of factories, farms, houses schools, railroads, and monuments as well as still life images of documents, objects, paintings, and architectural interiors.

An important archive from one of the leading photographic studios of the Old South.

Selected References

Carr, Laura G. and Meg Hughes, Curators. Developing Richmond: Photographs from the Cook Studio. Digital exhibit, Valentine Museum, 2019. 

Kocher, A. Lawrence and Howard Dearstyne, Shadows in Silver; A Record of Virginia, 1850–1900, In Contemporary Photographs Taken by George and Huestis Cook, with Additions from the Cook Collection. New York: Scribner, 1954