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You Can Help! |
| The glass plate negatives in the Hitchcock Free Academy collection have been digitally
scanned and made available on our website. You can scroll through the thumbnail images on the left and by selecting
one, a larger version of that image will appear in the right window. The larger image will display a descriptive
title and a plate number for identification. We are very interested in obtaining additional information about the
historical people, places and events so beautifully displayed in these photographs. We welcome any information anyone
may be able to provide about an image and encourage you to
contact the Academy with your comments. Please refer to the image by the plate number. As we gather more information about a photograph, descriptive text will be added to the image in the right window so that everyone will be able to share in the story behind the picture. There are several hundred glass plate negatives in the collection. We will continue to update these pages with additional images as more of the negatives are scanned. |
What is a Glass Plate Negative? Glass plate negatives came in to use in the early 1850s. The first ones were in use until about 1880 and were known as "wet plate" negatives. A photographer would coat a piece of glass with a collodian emulsion and exposed it before it dried. After 1880, "dry plate" negatives became more common. This process used a silver gelatin emulsion that was applied by the manufacturer and not the photographer. The emulsion dried and the presensitized plates could be stored until needed. |