The Burns Archive

Postmortem Photography Exhibition at Allentown Art Museum

2012-02-09T15:24:00.003-05:00

Mourning Pin, Infant with Ring Curl, circa 1870

Gothic to Goth: Embracing the Dark Side

Through March 29, 2012

The Burns archive is pleased to announce that we have several pieces included in this fantastic exhibition.
Postmortem daguerreotypes, ambrotypes ans tintypes will be on view.

Dr.Burns is scheduled to lecture on his postmortem and mourning photography collection 4/19/12.

Allentown Art Museum
31 North Fifth Street
Allentown, PA 18101

Tuesday - Saturday 11AM - 5PM, Sunday 12PM - 5PM, Monday Closed

Curated By Soody Sisco

It might be said that death, art, and fashion went hand in hand in America in the nineteenth century. The death of George Washington in 1799 spurred an outpouring of public mourning that found expression in a new genre of art that encompassed memorial paintings, prints, public monuments, mourning kerchiefs, ceramics, and, not least, needlework. Mourning art was considered a beautiful and appropriate—even sophisticated and fashionable—art form rather than a frivolous or morbid fascination with death. It encouraged an interweaving of religious, social, and aesthetic ideas drawn from the neoclassical ideal of the “heroic death,” as well as the burgeoning Romantic Movement. As literature with macabre gothic overtones gained popularity, emotional expressions of sentimentality, melancholy, and even horror and terror became commonplace.

The presentation of grief and sorrow became an art in itself in the Victorian era (1837 – 1901) as England’s Queen Victoria brought the expression of mourning to its zenith following the death of her husband, Prince Albert in 1861. On both sides of the Atlantic, elaborate mourning outfits became de rigeur, along with codified rituals for their wearing. As the American public rapidly assimilated both the social mores and fashionable tastes of mourning, the late nineteenth century became widely known for its prominence of elaborate and ostentatious mourning fashion. Almost a hundred years later, the silhouettes and styles of Victorian mourning wear made a vigorous reappearance with the emergence of the Goth subculture in the late 1970s, although now with a vocabulary of nonconformity and self-expression rather than the moral obligations of earlier years.

Gothic to Goth offers an overview of the nineteenth-century cult of mourning in American art and fashion and indicates how that trend translated into contemporary Goth fashion, a genre now embraced by mainstream couture as well as by the rock subculture of the twentieth century. Included in the exhibition are representative examples of mourning art such as needle pictures, paintings, and postmortem daguerreotype portraits; mourning jewelry and other accessories; two late Victorian mourning outfits; and examples of contemporary Goth fashion inspired by the mourning excesses of the earlier century. Objects from the museum’s own collections are supplemented by loans from the Everhart Museum, Burns Archive, Lackawanna Historical Society, Sigal Museum, Drexel Historic Costume Collection, the designer Kambriel, Heavy Red Couture Noir and custom jewelry designer and manufacturer Atelier Gothique

A Few Selections From The Burns Collection On View:

Child Held by Mother in Fingerless Gloves, Ambrotype, 1/6 Plate (In Hanging Frame), circa 1858

Father & Daughter Posed with Toy Rattle, Daguerreotype, 1/6 Plate, circa 1848

Mother Holding Daughter with Ribboned Hat, Daguerreotype, 1/6 Plate, circa 1853

More Posts on Postmortem Photography at The Burns Archive:

http://theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/2011/12/upcoming-lecture-reminder-photographing.html

http://theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/2010/06/postmortem-photography-at-burns-archive.html

http://theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/2011/04/sleeping-beauties-memorial-photographs.html

http://theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/2010/09/memento-mori-exhibition-opening-at.html

Exhibition Opening: African American Portraits 1900-1920

2012-01-25T16:32:00.000-05:00

Community Life: African American Portraits from the Burns Archive 1900-1920

and

Ming Smith: Film Noir

Feb 1- February 12, 2012

Reception Thursday February 2, 6-8pm

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

The National Arts Club

15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003

In honor of African American History month The National Arts Club Photography Committee will be presenting a two-part exhibition. A group of photographs by contemporary photographer Ming Smith and a series of historic images from Dr. Stanley B Burns’ collection will be on view. Burns’ images document community life as well as portraits from the first two decades of the twentieth century. These images supplement the traveling exhibition currently on display at the New York State Museum in Albany: Shadows & Substance: African American Photographs from the Burns Collection and Archive. Since 1979 Dr. Burns’ pioneering exhibitions of African American photography have documented the proud middle and working classes that have so long been absent from visual and written history of the early twentieth century.

Ming Smith lives in Harlem and has traveled the world with her camera. Her journey is “emotionally packed” as Gordon Parks remarks, in his introduction to Ming’s book. From her Ohio childhood to the large cities of America, Europe, Africa and Asia she “continually taps the intuitive and renders it in a form that is coherent and accessible” (Susan Kismaric, MOMA, Ming- A Ming Breakfast, Preface 1991). Her series encompasses topics including jazz, the black experience, Harlem, Native America, Africa and Paris. Ming Smith’s photography belongs to a tradition that adheres to the belief that the photograph is grounded in the artist’s experience of the world.

A sample of The Burns Collection images to be featured:

If interested in historical African American photographs you may enjoy in these posts as well:

New York State Museum Exhibits Historic African American Photos from The Burns Archive

Rare African American Photographs from the Ken Ogden Holdings Added to Collection

Pharmacy Collection Photographs from The Burns Archive

2012-01-16T18:45:00.000-05:00

Pharmacy, c. 1870s

Apothecary and General Store, c. 1870s

Interior of Helmbold's Drug Store, New York City, Stereo-view, c .1870s

Dr. Carney's Drug Store, c. 1900

Emerson Drug Company Bromo Seltzer, Horse-Drawn Delivery Wagon, c. 1900

Apothecary / Drug Store Interior, Circa 1890s

Detail: Photograph & Lizard Taxidermy

Bird Taxidermy

Pharmacie Montreal Pharmacy, Prescription Dispensary, c. 1930s. The first pharmacy to stay open 24 hours.


Eckerd's Drug Store, Columbia, South Carolina, 1930s. Eckerd's was founded in 1898 and ran until 2007.

Eckerd's Drug Store, Columbia, South Carolina, 1930s. Eckerd's was founded in 1898 and ran until 2007.

Teaming up for a Historic Forensic Project

2011-12-21T17:13:00.000-05:00

Dr. Stanley Burns and noted forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden met to discuss a joint volume on the photographic history of forensic science. This unique project will include Dr. Burns’ historic photos documenting the genesis of medical forensic studies from the 1860s on. These images will be combined with Dr. Baden’s own photographs taken over five decades of work as a medical examiner. Baden’s noted high-profile pathology and expert witness cases have included John F. Kennedy, Czar Nicholas II, Sid Vicious, OJ Simpson and John Belushi. Dr. Baden’s HBO’s Autopsy series is recognized as the first forensic television program. Burns’ photographs have been in numerous exhibitions on historical crime photography and featured on HBO’s Autopsy.


Dr. Michael Baden, Photo by ForensicScience.net

Dr. Stanley Burns Viewing the Baden Collection

Historic Forensic Photographs from The Burns Collection:

Human Skull, London, circa 1930s

Criminal Moulage, Finger Print Magazine, 1936

Detective, France, circa 1915

Los Angeles Sheriff (Frank Gompert) and his Crime Lab, 1929

Plaster Cast Severed Feet of Murdered Woman "The Flirtatious Widow," Boston, 1943

The Vindication of the Finger-Print, Circa 1900

A Camera that Records the Scene of the Accident, Rochester, NY, 1932

Houston Dermatological Society: Dermatology in the 19th Century

2011-12-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

On Monday, December 12, Stanley Burns MD, FACS lectured as guest speaker for the Houston Dermatological Society's annual ethics meeting in Houston, Texas.

Nineteenth Century Photography and its Role in the Creation of Modern Dermatology

The core of the lecture consisted of over 250 nineteenth century photographs of dermatological patients.

A Few Topics Discussed:

• Worldwide- Dermatologists produced more photographic atlases than all other medical fields combined.
• New York Dermatologists produced the greatest number of photographic atlases.
• New York’s George Henry Fox, one of the six founders of the American Dermatological Association, produced more atlases than any other physician. He influenced generations of dermatologists.
• Photography produced an objective detailed description.
• Provided a permanent document for future evaluation.
• Allowed non specialists to recognize skin disease.

Dr. Burns with HDS President Melissa Bogle, MD

Melissa Bogle, MD with Asra Ali, MD

The Attendees at Brennan's of Houston

Featured Images:

Urticaria George Henry Fox, MD, New York 1885

Pityriasis Rosea De Gibert, E. Chatelain, MD & Félix Méheaux, Paris, 1893

Urtica, George Henry Fox, MD, New York 1896

Elephantiasis Henry G. Piffard, MD, New York, 1891

To Learn More About 19th Century Dermatology

Read Dr. Burns' Four Volume Series 'Skin Pictures'

Photographing the Dead: Observatory Lecture Pics

2011-12-12T17:35:00.001-05:00

A big thanks to everyone who attended The Burns Archive lecture and book signing at The Observatory last week. Warm gratitude goes to Joanna Ebenstein and volunteers from The Morbid Anatomy Library for hosting this wonderful event. If you were not able to make it before the event sold out, we look forward to presenting on more lectures in 2012.

Joanna Ebenstein and Dr. Burns

Attendees at Photographing the Dead

Book Signing and Reception

Dr. Stanley Burns and Lissa Rivera of The Burns Archive

View slideshow below and tag yourself in our Picasa web album:

Upcoming Lecture Reminder: Photographing the Dead

2011-12-02T14:36:00.001-05:00

THE HISTORY OF POSTMORTEM PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BURNS COLLECTION AND ARCHIVE

ILLUSTRATED LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING WITH STANLEY B. BURNS, MD

Observatory: 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215
Monday, December 5th, 8:00pm, Admission: $5

Presented by Morbid Anatomy


Mother with Child Dead, from the Measles. Ambrotype, circa 1857.


"Mad' King Ludwig of Bavaria, The Drowned Swan King. Cabinet Card, 1886.

Visiting the Pet Cemetery, circa 1937

Sleeping Beauty Under Canopy in Slumber Room, circa 1915

About Sleeping Beauty: Dr. Burns’ first book on postmortem photography, Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America (1990) has been widely recognized as one of the most important photography books of all time. Sleeping Beauty has influenced an eclectic array of fields, from bereavement counseling and education to cultural anthropology, history, medicine, philosophy, religion and spirituality (not to mention pop music) and has been cited in debates on the death penalty, euthanasia and abortion. It has been the subject of numerous scholarly papers as well as seminars and exhibitions at notable institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. A decade later the Archive published Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography American & European Traditions in conjunction with an exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay. Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children, the third installment in this series was released this year to accompany a traveling exhibition.

The New York Review of Books: Someone Else's Children

2011-11-28T17:50:00.001-05:00

The Burns Archive is pleased to announce our exhibition Reed Bontecou: Masterpieces of Civil War Portraiture and accompanying publication Shooting Soldiers have been covered by The New York Review of Books:

Someone Else’s Children

Christopher Benfey

November 28, 2011

My wife and I have two sons, aged eighteen and twenty-two. Both have registered for the Selective Service, as the law requires. (“Our objective is to register you,” the official letter reminded them, “not to have you prosecuted.”) We don’t have a clear idea of Tommy’s or Nicholas’s views regarding military service; we hope that circumstances won’t force us to find out. None of us knows any men or women currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are someone else’s children. We watch news reports of wounded veterans learning to walk with prosthetic limbs. Recent stories about body parts mislaid at the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base fill us with outrage. Still, for many of us, it is a general, not an individualized outrage.

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
Charles H. Greenfield (left), wounded April 2, 1865 at Petersberg, VA; A. Smith (center),
wounded April 16, 1864 at Southside Railroad; P. Ferris (right), gunshot wound, left leg.

During the Civil War, in contrast, the mangling of young bodies was evident to all. Three million volunteers armed with advanced rifles, and firing at one another at point-blank range, fought on battlefields often not far from their own homes. American writers, many of whom had children in the war, were not insulated from the carnage. Fred Stowe was standing in the graveyard on Cemetery Ridge, above Gettysburg, when a live shell exploded near his ear, opening a wound that never healed. Charles Longfellow sought distraction from the trauma of the war in Yokohama, where he had a giant carp tattooed across his back, around the scars of two bullet holes. Emily Dickinson chose as her literary advisor a Union colonel suffering from PTSD: “We can find no scar,” she wrote in a famous poem, “But internal difference— / Where the Meanings, are.”

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
“A Morning’s Work” R. B. Bontecou’s label for his iconic image of wartime labors, 1865.

Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman served as nurses and eyewitness reporters in the hideous Union hospitals in Washington, D. C. Alcott contracted typhoid in the septic wards and wrote Little Women, about the daughters of a father wounded in the war, while treating herself with mercury. Whitman ministered to the needs of wounded soldiers while also keeping a careful visual record of everything he saw, “this other freight of helpless worn and wounded youth,” as he wrote to Emerson. “Doctors sawed arms & legs off from morning till night,” he reported in his journal. He was dismayed to see “a heap of feet, arms, legs, etc., under a tree in front of a hospital.” As he moved from bed to bed in the overcrowded wards, he was shocked by the youth of the victims. “Charles Miller, bed 19, company D, 53rd Pennsylvania, is only sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy, left leg amputated below the knee.”

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
Pvt. John Parmenter, before being operated on for gangrene. Wounded at Amelia Springs, VA, April 3, 1865

The remarkable medical photographs of the Civil War surgeon-photographer Reed Bontecou—now published in their entirety for the first time and recently shown at The Robert Anderson gallery in New York—bring us closer still. Bontecou, from Troy, New York, was a classifier of seashells and an ornithologist who had traveled in the Amazon before the war collecting specimens. A pioneer in surgical procedures known for the dexterity and speed of his operations, he was also a photographer of genius. His iconic image, “A Morning’s Work,” shows a pile of amputated legs he himself had sawed off earlier that day. Bontecou’s albums served many ends, most obviously instruction, with before-and-after shots, in the identification and treatment of conditions like gangrene and bullets lodged in bone. But they also aided in the later identification of veterans for disbursement of disability and pension funds. Bontecou was apparently an engaging and capable administrator of army hospitals who was once threatened with disciplinary action for inviting a recovering Confederate officer to his home for Thanksgiving dinner.

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
Pvt. John Parmenter lying unconscious from anesthesia on operating table with his severed foot, 1865.

Most poignant and painful is Bontecou’s artistic ability to capture the terror of his patients, what the editor and collector of medical photographs Stanley Burns, M.D., calls “individual bereavement.” Pvt. John Parmenter, unbearably young, lies prone on an army cot with his beautiful and vulnerable face turned towards us and his gangrenous foot propped up on a cushion. Then, in another photograph, we see him lying deathly pale and unconscious; a surgeon with his hand on one of Parmenter’s bent knees looks down thoughtfully at the severed foot. The picture has some of the bleak, geometrical power of Jacques-Louis David’s Death of Marat.

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
Robert Fryer, Private, Age 18. Gunshot wound, right hand.
Wounded March 25, 1865, at Battle of Hatcher’s Run.

In another arresting image, Robert Fryer, eighteen years old and wearing his cap and uniform, all gold buttons carefully buttoned, holds his hand to his chest as though playfully mimicking a handgun. His features are deadpan. At first, we assume his hand is partially hidden in his jacket. But no, it’s an illusion, presumably deliberate on the part of the photographer. Fryer’s middle, ring, and little fingers are amputated. According to Bontecou’s notes, “Patient has good use of forefinger and thumb.” Perhaps he watched young Robert Fryer buttoning his coat.

The photographs are a bitter reminder of the hideous race between better medical response and ever more devastating weaponry. If, as Burns notes, the improvised explosive device (IED) has changed the way war is fought and the wounded treated today, the novelty of the Crimean War and the Civil War was the 58 caliber Minie Ball, named for its inventor, Claude-Etienne Minié. This was a war in which 94% of Union wounds were caused by bullets. The Minie Ball, Burns remarks, “shattered and fractured bone easily and commonly carried clothing and other debris with it into the wound, making infection a constant companion in almost every case.” Bontecou’s images “documented the battle against gunshot wounds,” at a time when battle armor was minimal or absent and two years before the discovery of the principles of antiseptic surgery in 1867. Burns adds grimly, “Many of the men we see here are going to die.”

R.B. Bontencou, Courtesey of Stanley B. Burns, MD
Andsell H. Beam, Age 24. Gunshot wound to head.
Wounded April 6, 1865, Battle Of Farmville, VA.

There is another race on display in these photographs, between the sheer horror of the army hospital and our ability to find words and images adequate to the horror. “The real war,” Whitman wrote in Specimen Days, “will never get in the books.” The simple identification boards that many of Bontecou’s patients hold in their hands, with their name and company inscribed in white chalk, carry their own dire and individualized lyricism, as though to say, in Whitman’s resonant words: “I am the man, I suffered, I was there.” Andsell H. Beam, shot in the skull on April 6th, 1865, bows over his identification board as though in prayer, or in simple disbelief in his unfathomable fate. “Now that I have lived for 8 or 9 days amid such scenes as the camps furnish,” Whitman wrote his mother, “… really nothing we call trouble seems worth talking about.”

Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography By R.B. Bontecou by Dr. Stanley M. Burns has recently been published.

Civil War Book Review: Shooting Soldiers

2011-11-21T11:14:00.001-05:00

Looking Wounded Soldiers in the Eye

Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R. B. Bontecou showcases the Civil War photography of Dr. Reed Brockway Bontecou, Surgeon-in-Charge of Harewood General Hospital in Washington, D.C. This book is the first in a series of Bontecou’s photographs of identified soldiers from 101 regiments from the Harewood Hospital Album.

While the photographs may be graphic to some readers, it documents the high cost that soldiers paid for what they believed in a country of united states. Bontecou’s photographs, or carte de visites (CDV) were a result of the order by Surgeon General William A. Hammond to document the cases that the surgeons worked on, their treatment, and their outcomes. Many of Bontecou’s photographs helped illustrated the post-war publication of The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.

The artistry of Bontecou’s pictures has been recognized as among the highest levels of photographic art and helped make him a legend among medical photographers. “Due to their historical precedence there can be no doubt that Bontecou’s carte de visite album is the premier medical photograph album of the Civil War” (8). Included among the images are close-ups of patients in the OR and of surgeries in progress the earliest known of such views.

This volume also contains a sketch of Bontecou’s career, a history of the various images, and a brief summary of the last campaigns of the war. Each of the images identifies the soldier, what unit he belonged to, his wound, where received and date, treatment, and outcome. Some of the images have more information than others. The last few pages of the book list the battles, from the Wilderness to Appomattox, the soldiers in this book, their unit and plate number. Also included in this section are those with no battle listed and those who died of disease (not in battle). This book represents the earliest efforts of one physician to document war-related wounds and, by the use of photography, present to fellow physicians a way of caring for those wounds.

Shooting Soldiers is a well-written, fast and easy-to- read book. Each image gives the reader a look into the tragic costs of the most turbulent time in America’s history.

The author of this book, Dr. Stanley B. Burns, M.D., an internationally known historian, publisher, and archivist, is an ophthalmologist in New York City and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Peter J. D’Onofrio, Ph.D. is the president of the Society of Civil War Soldiers, Inc., the largest non-profit, tax-exempt, international educational group dedicated to the study and preservation of Civil War era medical and surgical techniques and the professionals who performed those techniques. He is also the editor/publisher of the Society’s quarterly Journal of Civil War Medicine. He can be reached at socwsurgeons@aol.com or through the web site at www.civilwarsurgeons.org.

To Learn more about Civil War Book Review, Louisiana State University Libraries' Special Collections please visit www.cwbr.com

To Purchase Shooting Soldiers, visit our online book store http://burnspress.com/

UPCOMING LECTURE: PHOTOGRAPHING THE DEAD

2011-11-17T12:52:00.001-05:00

THE HISTORY OF POSTMORTEM PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BURNS COLLECTION AND ARCHIVE

ILLUSTRATED LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING WITH STANLEY B. BURNS, MD

Observatory: 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215
Monday, December 5th, 8:00pm, Admission: $5

Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Postmortem photography, photographing a deceased person, was a common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs, from the beginning of the practice until now, are special mementos that hold deep meaning for mourners through visually “embalming” the dead. Although postmortem photographs make up the largest group of nineteenth-century American genre photographs, until recent years they were largely unseen and unknown. Dr. Burns recognized the importance of this phenomenon in his early collecting when he bought his first postmortem photographs in 1976. Since that time he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of postmortem photography in the world and has curated several exhibits and published three books on the subject: the Sleeping Beauty series. Tonight, Dr. Burns will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today and share hundreds of images from his collection.

About Sleeping Beauty: Dr. Burns’ first book on postmortem photography, Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America (1990) has been widely recognized as one of the most important photography books of all time. Sleeping Beauty has influenced an eclectic array of fields, from bereavement counseling and education to cultural anthropology, history, medicine, philosophy, religion and spirituality (not to mention pop music) and has been cited in debates on the death penalty, euthanasia and abortion. It has been the subject of numerous scholarly papers as well as seminars and exhibitions at notable institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. A decade later the Archive published Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography American & European Traditions in conjunction with an exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay. Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children, the third installment in this series was released this year to accompany a traveling exhibition.

To learn about Burns Archive Press titles PLEASE VISIT OUR ONLINE BOOK STORE

These titles will be available for sale & signing at Observatory the night of the lecture:

Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children
Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography…
Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R.B. Bontecou
News Art: Manipulated Photographs from the Burns Archive
Deadly Intent, Crime & Punishment: Photographs from the Burns Archive
Seeing Insanity: Photography & The Depiction of Mental Illness

Below are a few of the hundreds of images that will be discussed:

Mirrors and Reflections: Reception Tomorrow Night

2011-11-16T16:25:00.001-05:00

RECEPTION NOVEMBER 17, 6-8 PM
November 17, 2011 through January 7, 2012

Robert Anderson Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, Suite 503, New York, NY, 10019

Mirrors and Reflections:

A Group Show Curated by Evelyne Z. Daitz of the Witkin Gallery and and Alison Bradley

Inspired by Edward Steichen’s photograph, The Little Round Mirror, 1906, Mirrors and Reflections is a tour de force of photographs of reflective surfaces of all sorts. Just as the mirror is integral to the camera, so it seems photographers are inseparable from their fascination with mirrored images. Water, mirrors, glass, open windows seen through mirrors, iconic buildings reflected in puddles, portraiture, and landscapes writ large the exhibition includes work by artists such as Atget, Brassai, Rudy Burckhardt, Elliott Erwitt, Lillian Bassman, Michael Eastman, Andre Kertesz, Steichen, Wayne Source, George Tice, Barbara Mensch, Joan Murray, Geoff Winningham, and Henry Wolf, self portraits by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Eduard Boubat and anonymous photographs as well as a 19th Century hand painted image of Geishas. Robert Anderson Gallery is very happy to be working with Curator Evelyne Z. Daitz, Witkin Gallery, on this special holiday show.

The Burns Collection is participating with four vintage photographs.

This exhibition is a great opportunity to view a spectacular line-up of photographers.

Here is a preview of the photographs on display from The Burns Collection, including a rare hand-tinted albumen print by Kusakabe Kimbei:

Exhibition Update: Shadow and Substance at the NY State Museum

2011-11-16T15:37:00.001-05:00

New York State Museum Photography Gallery

222 Madison Ave, Albany, NY 12230.

Saturday, October 15, 2011 - Saturday, March 31, 2012

Monday - Saturday, 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Closed Sundays
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day

The 113 images in Shadow and Substance include portraits, snapshots and photographs documenting industries, property and events related to the African-American experience from the beginning of photography to today.

Originally presented by the Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, and curated by Modupe Labode, Ph.D., History and Public Scholar of African-American History at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the exhibition focuses on a wide range of themes: Bondage and Freedom; Civil War and Reconstruction; The Nadir; Jim Crow and Lynching; Community Life; Family Albums; Black Reflections on Black life; and Celebrations.

Here is a preview slideshow of the installation at The New York State Museum:

To Learn More About This Traveling Exhibition and How You Can Participate

Please Visit HERE

Manifestations of Psoriasis: Turn-of-the-Century Medical Photographs

2011-11-04T18:32:00.000-04:00

Psoriasis Annulata

Psoriasis Manum

Psoriasis Punctata

Psoriasis Circinata

Psoriasis Diffusa

Psoriasis Guttate

Psoriasis Circinata

‘Psoriasis’ was one of the first skin diseases to be described. It was even referenced in the Old Testament, where the term ‘lepra’ was used to identify it; however, lepra was utilized for a wide variety of skin diseases, including a potpourri of conditions from leprosy to elephantiasis to vitiligo. Psoriasis has a wide spectrum of clinical expressions, and as a result has long been confused or lumped with numerous other skin diseases, including tuberculosis and syphilis. Psoriasis has been a confusing disease to identify because of the many patterns it displays and because a variety of different patterns may exist in the same patient. In essence, each psoriasis patient presents as a unique case of the disease. Today, some of the patterns and expressions of psoriasis are identified as plaque, pustular, guttate, inverse, erythrodermic, nail and arthritic. Psoriasis is a non-contagious chronic condition that most commonly appears as an inflamed edematous cutaneous lesion with built up silvery white scales, which form as a plaque. It is believed to be caused by unusually rapid growth of skin cells due to a derangement in the immune system. Drugs that affect the growth of cells, such as the anti-metabolites traditionally used in cancer treatment, have been used to treat psoriasis.

Bellevue Literary Review 10th Anniversary Celebration

2011-11-02T17:05:00.000-04:00

A unique contribution to both literature and medicine, the Bellevue Literary Review publishes works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that touch upon relationships to illness, health, and healing. It is published by the Department of Medicine twice a year. Over the past decade, the BLR has flourished, becoming a prominent voice in the field of narrative medicine and in the literary magazine community at large.

The Bellevue Literary Review celebrated their 10th anniversary with a reading followed by a reception at The Bellevue Hospital Rotunda in New York City this past Sunday, October 30.

Slide Show of the Reading and Celebration (click images to enlarge):

Readers Featured:

Paul Harding’s novel, Tinkers, published by the Bellevue Literary Press, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. He has taught writing at Harvard University, The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Grinnell College. His second novel, Enon, is forthcoming.

David Oshinsky holds the Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas and is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University. His books include Polio: An American Story, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2006. His essays and reviews appear regularly in The New York Times and other publications.

Louise Blecher Rose has published a novel, The Launching of Barbara Fabrikant, and a number of stories in Redbook Magazine. She taught in the Columbia Undergraduate Writing program for twenty-five years, received an NEA grant for a second novel, and is currently teaching literature and creative writing in Brooklyn and Patchogue at St. Joseph’s College.

Hal Sirowitz is the author of six collections of poetry with one forthcoming from Backwaters Press in Nebraska. He also has poems in an anthology, Beauty Is a Verb, which is about disabilities.

Rachel Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University. The most recent among her many books is a volume of poetry, The Ache of AppetiteStrange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry (Copper Beech Press) and a memoir, (Paul Dry Books).

To learn more about The Bellevue Literary Review and The Burns Archive Prize for Nonfiction (supported by Stanley B. Burns, MD) Click HERE.

American Academy of Ophthalmology Exhibition

2011-11-02T16:46:00.001-04:00

The American Academy of Ophthalmology's Museum of Vision presented “Picturing the Eye: Ophthalmic Photography and Film,” an exhibit focused on the extraordinary power of ophthalmic imaging. While images of eyes and eye disease have been made almost since man was able to draw, the superiority of photography and film to capture the exact nature of disease and its cure is without parallel.

A concise history of the profession highlighting some major achievements and iconic photographs will be on display from Stanley B. Burns, MD and the Burns Archive – the nation's largest collection of medical photography. The Museum of Vision will exhibit camera equipment, period photographs, stereographs the Ophthalmic Photographers' Society, entitled “Our Ophthalmic Heritage: The Evolution of Ophthalmic Imaging.”

“Both the exhibit and the accompanying symposium are completely unique ways to illustrate a truly fascinating part of our ophthalmic heritage,” said Jenny Benjamin, Director of the Museum of Vision. “While images of eyes and eye disease have been created since the dawn of humankind, the greatness of photography and film in capturing the exact nature of disease and its cure is without parallel.”

View images from the American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting in the slide show below (click to to enlarge images):

To learn more about the history of Ophthalmic Photography read

Dr. Burns' Ophthalmology: A Photographic History 1845-1945

And Visit The Museum of Vision

655 Beach Street San Francisco, CA

Halloween Advice from the Desk of Dr. Burns

2011-10-31T18:45:00.001-04:00

Don't Forget the Details

Get Your Hair Done

Text Your Friends and Tell Them What You're Doing

Dress Appropriately

Put on Some Makeup

Make Some Plans

Don't Plan Anything too Dangerous

Bring Your Friends

Go to a Party

Don't do Anything Illegal

Wear the Best Costume

Burns Archive Exhibition Reviewed in The New Yorker

2011-10-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

Goings On About Town: Art

Reed Bontecou

Bontecou, the head surgeon at aWashington, D.C., Army hospital during the Civil War, photographedwounded soldiers to document their injuries and treatment. Hissepia-toned albumen prints were mounted in the elegant oval formatstypical of the period’s popular carte-de-visite portraits, and hissubjects do their best to strike a formal pose while half dressed andbadly hurt. In the nearly fifty small examples here, grave young mendisplay amputated limbs, bullet wounds, missing fingers, and disfiguredfaces. But Bontecou’s sympathy turns what could be mere medicalcuriosities into true portraits—complicated, touching, and unsettling.Through Nov. 12.

Through November 12

Anderson

24 W. 57th St., New York, NY

646-455-0393

robertandersongallery.com

New York State Museum Exhibits Historic African American Photos from The Burns Archive

2011-10-20T16:25:00.004-04:00

Shadow and Substance: African American Images from the Burns Archive

Saturday, October 15, 2011 - Saturday, March 31, 2012

New York State Museum Photography Gallery

Cultural Education Center, Madison Avenue, Albany, NY
Monday - Saturday, 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Closed Sundays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day
The NYS Museum is free. Donations are accepted at the door.

A selection from the over 100 images on view:

White woman and enslaved girl, Washburn & Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, c. 1849, daguerreotype.

Woman wearing acloak, Washburn & Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, c. 1855,ambrotype. This somberly dressed woman was probably one of thethousands of free people of color who lived in Louisiana.

Charles Harris, co A 31 US COL Troops, c. 1865. Civil War soldierwounded at The Battle of the Crater. Photograph by R.B. Bontecou, MD.

Man with cane, c. 1860s, cabinet card. This man chose to have himselfphotographed as a stylish gentleman, from his top hat to his elegantsuit and shined shoes. The dog could belong to him or the photographer.

Man in fraternalregalia, c. 1900, cabinet card. Black men and women supported scoresof clubs and fraternal organizations. These groups providedentertainment and camaraderie and formed a nationwide network.

Major Taylor, c. 1900. Marshall “Major” Taylor born in 1878 was the dominant cyclist of his time and world champion.

Four soldiers, World War I, c. 1917. Many blacks endured unequal treatment within the military. However, many soldiers who served overseas also encountered for the first time a world that was not marked by Jim Crow segregation. © The Burns Archive.

Baptism in a river, Hampton Roads, Virginia, c. 1930. An evangelical minister follows the example of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan by baptizing his followers in a local river.

Woman sitting on car bumper, c. 1931. This stylish woman balances on a car bumper. Countless snapshots show people sitting on, in, or near cars, an indication of how important these vehicles are to us. © The Burns Archive.

Marian Anderson at the Mall, Washington D.C., April 9, 1939. When the Daughters of the Revolution refused to rent its concert hall to any nonwhite singer, Marian Anderson, with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, performed before the Lincoln Memorial.

artdaily.org

ALBANY, NY.- Shadow and Substance: African American Images from The Burns Archive -- opened at the New York State Museum October 15, showcasing rarely-seen photographs from one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

Open through March 31, 2012 in the Photography Gallery, theexhibition allows the viewer to perceive how African-Americans wereseen by others and how they wished to be seen. These images do not tella complete story of the past, but their eloquent shadows provide uniqueglimpses into the lives of African-Americans over the past 160 years.

The 113 images in Shadow and Substance include portraits, snapshotsand photographs of celebration, tragedy and quiet joy, work and family,strength and perseverance. From early images of slaves and Civil Warsoldiers to new voters and political activists, the exhibition isfilled with illustrations of achievement and shocking evidence ofintolerance. Some images may not be suitable for young children.

The images were culled from the comprehensive Burns Archive ofHistoric Vintage Photographs that include specializations in medicaland health care, death and dying, sports and recreation, in addition toimages of African-Americans. The collection was amassed by Dr. StanleyB. Burns, an ophthalmologist, collector and curator in New York Citywho was the founding donor for several photography collections,including those of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Bronx Museum of theArts. Burns has authored several books including “A Morning’s Work:Medical Photographs from the Burns Archive & Collection,1843-1939”; “Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America” and“Forgotten Marriage: The Painted Tintype and Decorative Frame,1860-1910.”

The traveling exhibition is organized by the Indiana State Museumand curated by Dr. Modupe Labode, assistant professor of history andpublic scholar of African-American History and Museum Studies atIndiana University.

Reception: Masterpieces of Civil War Portraiture at The Robert Anderson Gallery

2011-10-14T18:51:00.001-04:00

RECEPTION TONIGHT: Masterpieces of Civil War Portraiture at The Robert Anderson Gallery

2011-10-06T12:26:00.001-04:00

Thomas Yourall, Private Company C, 3rd US Artillery

Reception Oct 6, 6-8pm.

Robert Anderson Gallery Presents:

Reed Bontecou: Masterpieces of Civil War Portraiture from the Burns Collection.

Robert Anderson Gallery

24 West 57th Street, Suite 503

New York, NY, 10019

On View Through Nov 12, 2011

Hours: 11am -6pm, Tues - Saturday

Coffin Plates

2011-10-05T12:32:00.000-04:00

Coffin plates were popularly used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, though usage dates back to the 17th century. The plates above range from the 1872-1915. They were typically made from metals ranging from silver to tin based on the economic means of the deceased's family.The plates would be attached to coffin with nails or propped near thebody in a casket. Family members would often remove the plate after the funeral and keep it as a memento of the departed. As the funeral industry grew at the turn-of-the-century, memorial decor became more extravagant. Elaborate jewel box caskets with silklinings, special flower arrangements, memorial cards and coffin plates became standards. The postmortem photograph in this post illustrates the height of funeral decor. The coffin plate was propped near the body as an ornamental emblem.

The image below is of child in his carriage, with coffin plate attached to the velvet lining of the ambrotype case (circa 1856). If a family already had a favorite photograph of a child in their possession, they would often prepare their own memorial instead of going through the expense and trouble of having a postmortem image taken. They would attach, poems, locks of hair, pieces of clothing, or other mementos of the child’s life. Often they included mementos of the child’s death. A favorite souvenir of the funeral was the coffin plate, which was removed so the family could have a tangible piece of their loved ones burial chamber. Here the tiny coffin plate “Our Darling” that was fixed to this child’s coffin was attached on the mat. Considering that purple was a mourning color its possible the image was transferred to a case with a purple mat when the child died.

Reed Bontecou: Masterpieces of Civil War Portraiture at The Robert Anderson Gallery

2011-09-29T15:22:00.003-04:00

The Burns Archive is pleased to announce the opening of the first major commercial exhibition of Reed B. Bontecou, MD’s Civil War photography. Bontecou’s photographs challenge the master photographers of his era.

Sepember 28 - Nov 12, 2011

Reception Oct 6, 6-8pm

Robert Anderson Gallery24 West 57th Street, Suite 503
New York, NY, 10019
Hours: 11am -6pm, Tues - Saturday

A Selection of the Exhibited Photographs:

Brazer Wilsey, Sergeant, Company D, 4th NY Vols., Aged 30.
Accidental Gunshot Wound Of Scalp Over Frontal Bone, Denuding Bone Of Periosteum.
Hand-drawn bullet path by R. B. Bontecou.

Andsell H. Beam, Corporal, Company I, 26th Michigan, Volunteers, Age 24.
Gunshot Wound Of Head, Injuring Skull, Upper Anterior Aspect.
Hand-drawn Bullet Path by R. B. Bontecou.

Jacob Immell, Private, Company L, 21st PA Cavalry.
Gunshot Wound, Upper Third of Right Thigh, Anterior to Femur. Femoral Artery Later attacked by Gangrene.

Robert Spense, Sergeant Company B, 6th Maryland Vols..
Gunshot Wound of Neck, the Ball Passing from Right to Left.

Henry Wilkins, Private Company H, 24th U. S. Infantry, Age 25.
Gunshot Wound of from gunshot wound of left knee joint, Amputation Performed June 8, 1864. The Patient Continued Suffering with No Prospect of a Final Recovery, Remained in this Condition Until the Month of May, 1865, When it was Deemed Expedient to Remove the Necrosed Bone it Having Become Detached….

John W. Payne, Corporal Company A, 5th Vermont, Age 34.
Gunshot Wound of Abdomen, the Ball Entering Over Left Hypochondriac Region, Passing Obliquely Downwards and Backwards, and Emerging Near the Spine, Injuring in its Course the Descending Colon, Feces Passing.

Robert Anderson Gallery Press Release:

The 43 albumen photographs on view at Robert Anderson Gallery compromise a rare, and for the most part, first time ever public view of the unique medical images by Reed Brockway Bontecou, MD, Surgeon in-Charge of Harewood U.S. Army General Hospital, Washington, D.C., from the Collection of Stanley B. Burns, MD. In recognition of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, Robert Anderson Gallery offers this rare collection of albumen portraits and cartes de visites of wounded soldiers, selected from Bontecou’s personal albums. The photographs represent a unique opportunity to view some of the most moving documents of the Civil War and the associated human casualties.

Reed Bontecou was responsible for pioneering, and taking, the largest number of photographs of wounded soldiers during the Civil War and was the single largest contributor of photographs and specimens to the Army Medical Museum and medical publications of the time. His close up images of surgery, anesthesia, and patients posing with their pathological specimens were unique to his time. Many photographs are of patients pre- and post- operation, views of patients showing the progression of specific treatments, or the various stages of diseases. After the war he organized his photographs into albums laying them out, anatomically from head to foot wounds, and loosely alphabetically by soldier’s name.

Bontecou’s images are beautifully posed, and the sitters seem almost serene in his gaze, elevating clinical photography to an art form. They speak a universal language of war, or rather, what it can do in human terms. Bontecou was a master of exposing the nature of the sitter. Beyond the wounds, the amputations, and the gangrene, the subject is presented as naturally as possible. It should be noted that smiling in photographs during this early period was very rare and the subject put on his best expression. Some images are further enhanced by Bontecou’s own red pen, detailing the trajectory of the bullet that impacted on the patient. These images, with the hand drawn lines, were part of his personal Harewood Hospital teaching album.

Also on view are his Cartes de Visites, an amazing visual document of the medical aspects of war and examples not equaled until fifty years later during WW1. The CDV album is the pioneering effort by one physician to document war wounds and to use photography to teach physicians how to care for these wounds. Due to their historical precedence there can be no doubt that Bontecou’s CDV album, kept at Harewood U. S. A. General hospital, is the premier medical photograph album of the Civil War. No other large compilations of war-time clinical images exist, with over 570 images. On view will be one page of the album, comprised of 12 single CDVs, and four single CDVs from The Amy Medical Museum, Photographs Contributed by R. B. Bontecou.

Corset Findings

2011-09-28T18:36:00.000-04:00

The Burns Archive Staff happened upon these beautiful corset photos while tidying up the archive this week. We hope you enjoy them. Both fashion and medical corsets are featured.

Parisian Woman With Corseted Waist, Cabinet Photo, Circa 1890s

Parisian Woman With Corseted Waist, Cabinet Photo, Circa 1890s (Verso)

Medical Corset "For the immediate relief of the distress after eating."

The Museum of Vision: Picturing the Eye: Ophthalmic Photography and Film

2011-09-14T18:14:00.002-04:00

Ophthalmic Heritage to be Highlighted at the American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting in Orlando

“Picturing the Eye: Ophthalmic Photography and Film” will be on display during show hours Oct. 22 through 25 in the Orange County Convention Center, Level 2, Hall A4, Booth #1266.

The “Our Ophthalmic Heritage: The Evolution of Ophthalmic Imaging” symposium will be held on Monday, Oct. 24, from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. in room W414ab at the Orange County Convention Center and is open to all meeting attendees.

"A number of pieces are on loan from Stanley B. Burns, MD, and the Burns Archive in New York City. Dr. Burns is an ophthalmologist with a photo collection of 700,000 images. His collection of medical photography is the nation’s largest, with 40,000 images dating from the 1840s to the 1920s, with several thousand more from the 1930s to 1996. The Museum of Vision will also exhibit camera equipment, period photographs, stereo-graphs and atlases from its own collection. Four screens will also show selections from the Academy archives film collection containing early footage of cataract, retinal and other surgeries."

A few of the many Burns Archive pieces to be displayed:

Refractometer, 1880s

Conquering Ophthalmia Neonatorum: Crede Ptophylaxis

Retinal Blood Vessel Pattern ID System Camera, 1937

PRESS RELEASE:
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB)

The Museum of Vision, a public service program of the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, will be showcasing a very special exhibit at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s 2011 Annual Meeting in October in Orlando. The Museum’s “Picturing the Eye: Ophthalmic Photography and Film” exhibit will explore the extraordinary power of ophthalmic imaging through photography and film.

In addition to the exhibit, the Museum of Vision will co-sponsor the symposium “Our Ophthalmic Heritage: The Evolution of Ophthalmic Imaging” with the Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society.

Images of the eye and eye disease have been made almost since man was able to draw. This Museum’s exhibit will highlight the history of ophthalmology as a profession and its achievements related to imaging and iconic photographs while the symposium will discuss ophthalmic illustration, the discovery of photography and its application to ophthalmology, and the development of fluorescein angiography.

“Both the exhibit and the accompanying symposium are completely unique ways to illustrate a truly fascinating part of our ophthalmic heritage,” said Jenny Benjamin, Director of the Museum of Vision. “While images of eyes and eye disease have been created since the dawn of humankind, the greatness of photography and film in capturing the exact nature of disease and its cure is without parallel.”

About the American Academy of Ophthalmology
The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest association of eye physicians and surgeons — Eye M.D.s — with more than 30,000 members worldwide. Eye health care is provided by the three “O’s” – ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians. It is the ophthalmologist, or Eye M.D., who can treat it all: eye diseases, infections and injuries, and perform eye surgery. For more information, visit http://www.aao.org.

About The Museum of Vision
The Museum of Vision is an educational program of The Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. It is the only institution in the United States whose sole purpose is to preserve the history of ophthalmology and celebrate its unique contributions to science and health. The Museum of Vision strives to inspire an appreciation of vision science, the ophthalmic professions and contributions made toward preventing blindness. For more information on the Museum of Vision, visit http://www.museumofvision.org.

Manicomio Nacional: Female Uruguayan Psychiatric Patient Album

2011-09-09T10:58:00.002-04:00

These photos from the album Manicomio Nacional: Departamento de Mujeres (National Madhouse: Woman’s Section), document the years February 1907 through August 1909, and each contains 201 double-sided pages. The albums, with almost 500 photographs, are one of the largest such compilations surviving and are a legacy of a distant era of psychiatric treatment. This hospital, situated in Montevideo, was the primary psychiatric facility in Uruguay.

A photograph of each patient was taken upon entering and again at discharge. Almost all the entrance photographs are present, but only about half of the ‘leaving’ photographs are extant, partially due to the death of patients while in the hospital. Most patients remained only a few months, but some stayed as long as a year or more. The death rate was 16.5%. The study and analysis of the photographs, as well as the diagnosis and other parameters, offer special insight into the care provided. The patient documentation reveals that many were brought in by the municipal police, a few were transferred from other hospitals and some admitted by private physicians. Most have a written diagnosis and a few have treatment discussed. The photographs represent a cross section of patients with mental illness. Several images in the albums depict older children with mental retardation.

The discovery of a photo album of psychiatric patients is a significant photographic-historical event. Less than handful of these hospital albums have been uncovered in the last 30 years. Most were destroyed decades ago; however, a few have been preserved by institutions.

ZUARIA DE M.
Admitted: SEPT 20,1907

EUGENIA A.
Admitted: JUL 25, 1908
Discharged: SEPT 30, 1908

CINIACA R.
Admitted: OCT 13, 1907
Discharged: JAN 26, 1908

ANGELA F. DE G.
Admitted: OCT 27, 1907
Discharged: DEC 2, 1907

MARGHERITA A.
Discharged: FEB 15, 1909

ANGELA G.
Discharged: AUG 24, 1907

ISARIAS D. DE O.
Admitted: JAN 10, 1909
Discharged: MAR 30, 1909

AGUSTA N. P.
Admitted: MAR 12, 1908
Discharged: AUG 28, 1908

Burns Archive Press Titles Seeing Seeing Insanity: Photography & The Depiction of Mental Illness and Patients & Promise: A Photographic History of Mental & Mood Disorders (4 Volumes) feature 35 photographs from the Manicomio Nacional album, along with an extended history and many other amazing historical images. Click the book covers below to visit the Burns Press Online Bookstore.

Electrotherapy- Crookes Tube (Cathode Ray)

2011-08-31T12:44:00.001-04:00

Position 1: Crookes's tube under the table and plate over the chest. This method is specially valuable in locating foreign bodies stereoscopically.

Position 2: The plate can be changed without changing the position of the patient in stereoscopic skiagraphy.

19th Century Exercise Photos

2011-08-31T12:09:00.000-04:00

Victorians shed their corsets and trousers to display stretching techniques:

The Syrian-Druse Rebellion of 1925: Burns Collection Album

2011-08-19T15:53:00.001-04:00

The pages combine images from the bloody Syrian Revolt with family and travel photos spanning the mid to late 1920s. Haunting pictures of public assassinations and the devastation of Damascus are surreally juxtaposed with a glamorous Middle Eastern beauty named "Goldie." The album is an interesting document in light of the current Syrian Revolt and the general state of unrest in the middle east.

Close-ups of images in the album:

Damascus in Ruins, 1925

Dead bodies of Syrian rebels, killed by the French Army in 1925, and placed in Marjeh Square

Druze Family

DRUZE REVOLT

Also called: Syrian Revolution

1925-1927, Deaths: 8000

The Syrian Revolution, Great Syrian Revolt or Great Druze Revolt (1925-1927) was the largest and longest-lasting anti-colonial insurgency in the inter-war Arab East. Mobilizing peasants, workers, and army veterans, rather than urban elites and nationalist intellectuals, it was the first mass movement against colonial rule in the Middle East. The revolt failed to liberate Syria from French occupation, but it provided a model of popular nationalism and resistance that remains potent in the Middle East today. Each subsequent Arab uprising against foreign rule has repeated the language and tactics of the Great Syrian Revolt.

Bearded Ladies: Hirsutism

2011-08-04T11:15:00.000-04:00

Unidentified

Delina Rossa "Bearded Lady From Paris"

Madame Josephine Clofullia (1827–1875)

Clémentine Delait (1865–1939)

Delait and her husband kept a café in Thaon-les-Vosges, in Lorraine, France. According to later accounts, Clémentine Delait visited a carnival, saw a bearded woman with some stubble and boasted that she could grow a better beard herself. Her husband bet 500 francs to back her. The bet attracted many more customers to the Delaits' café and they changed the name to Le Café de La Femme a Barbe, "The café of the Bearded Woman"

The Wall Street Journal Reviews Burns Archive Exhibit:

2011-07-18T16:25:00.000-04:00

Dr. R.B. Bontecou's photo of Pvt. Robert Fryer

Shadows and Light Somewhere in Time
Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2011
by William Meyers

Their faces are as telling as the wounds they suffered. Unlike Mathew Brady, who was a commercial photographer, Reed B. Bontecou was an army doctor: He took photographs of wounded Civil War soldiers in the first systematic attempt to study combat injuries and the procedures used to treat them.

"Robert Fryer, private, Co. G, 52d N.Y. Vols., aged 18" stares at us from an oval frame. His kepi is on his head, and against his uniform jacket with its long row of brass buttons he holds his right hand: Only his thumb and forefinger are left. His look expresses neither pain nor self-pity, but his troubled attempt to understand his experience.

There are two pictures of "David R. Templeton, Private Company A, 46 N.Y Vols., age 16, …. with gunshot wound of the head."

The first must have been taken soon after he lost his eye, since the left side of his face is covered with blood and he seems to be suffering.
In the second photo, he has been cleaned up and dressed, his hair combed, but his one open eye expresses the same dazed puzzlement as Pvt. Fryer.

Other soldiers have other parts of their bodies violated or missing. Dr. Bontecou's brief descriptions of where and how each patient was injured, the treatment he received and the outcome—"parts healed kindly," "gradually sank and died"—are posted in notebooks attached to the display cases.

Excerpts from Walt Whitman's "Specimen Days" describing his experiences working as a nurse in Union military hospitals provide context. The photographs come from the extraordinary collection of Stanley Burns, a New York physician.

Civil War Exhibit Extended Until August 29

2011-07-18T16:02:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK'S CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS

Photographs of Dr. R. B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman.

EXTENDED THROUGH AUGUST 29, 2011

Merchant's House Museum, 29 East Fourth Street, NY, NY

From Broadway World.com
Thanks to an overwhelming response from visitors, the Merchant's House Museum, in partnership with The Burns Archive, will extend the exhibition of photographs of wounded New York soldiers by army surgeon and native New Yorker Dr. Reed B. Bontecou that opened in April to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. More-than 100 images of human ruination are captioned with quotations from Walt Whitman's 1882 memoir, Specimen Days, in which he recounts his own horrifying experience as a volunteer nurse. According to Whitman, "The real war will never get in the books."

William Stewart, 3 NY Independent Battery.
Aged 20 years, wounded at Petersburg, March 25, 1865.
Gun shot wound of humerus, resection of head of right humerus.

A View of One of the Displays of Bontecou's Photographs
on Exhibit at the Merchant's House Museum.

Psychiatric Images in The Ward (film), Village Voice Mention

2011-07-08T18:25:00.001-04:00

We are pleased to announce that John Carpenter's The Ward opens today.The opening credits of the film feature several Burns Archive Images. Other films that feature Burns Archive images are The Haunting in Connecticut, The Others and Jacob's Ladder (+ many more).

The Village Voice mentions the images in the opening credits as one of the highlights of the film:

Ensemble Therapy: John Carpenter Returns With The Ward (Village Voice)
By Nick Pinkerton Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011

"...The Ward keeps its claws in a viewer, though it never wholly attains the promise of its opening credits. Beautiful and atmospheric representatives of a lost art, the credits themselves show images of madness, including woodcuts and antique lobotomy photos, on shattering panes of glass whose shards float across the screen in slow motion."

Other Psychiatric Images From The Burns Archive Can Be Found In Burns Press Titles: Patients and Promise: A Photographic History of Mental & Mood Disorders and

Seeing Insanity: Photography & The Depiction of Mental Illness

Also check out our past blog about Psychiatric Hospital Restraints HERE

Photo-Eye Picks Two Burns Press Titles In 'Book-A-Day' Curated Selection

2011-06-23T17:53:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children was chosen as the 'Book-A-Day' June 22 and Shooting Soldiers Civil War Medical Photography by R.B. Bontecou was picked as today's feature. Our new releases will now be available on photo-eye as well as www.burnspress.com.

The Mismeasure of Stephen Jay Gould: Dr. Burns' Commentary

2011-06-23T17:33:00.000-04:00

Images from the physical anthropology collection at The Burns Archive:

John Shaw Billings, MD & Cranial Capacity Research, 1885.
“Ascertaining Capacity of Cranial Cavity by Means of Water”

John Shaw Billings, MD (1838-1913), was one of the greatest personalities in American medicine. His two most outstanding achievements were his almost singlehanded establishment of the Surgeon General’s Medical Library, which evolved into the National Library of Medicine, and his creation with Robert Fletcher, in 1880, of a monthly list and guide to medical publications, the indispensable bibliography, Index Medicus. Billings, Deputy Surgeon General of the United States, enlarged the Surgeon General’s Library from about 600 volumes in 1865 at the end of the Civil War to over 50,000 volumes by 1873.

Army Medical Museum Series of Stereograms No. 2
Posterior View of a Cranium of a Pottawatomie Chief. From Wisconsin

Army Medical Museum Series of Stereograms No. 108
Base View of a Cranium. From an ancient Tumulus Near Fort Wadsworth, Dakota Territory.

The Mismeasure of Stephen Jay Gould: Dr. Burns' Commentary-

I have always maintained that historical truth takes decades and in many cases a century to be revealed. As a student of 19th century photography and medical anthropometric, physiognomy and craniometric studies, I found the work of celebrated paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould to be quite questionable. Gould’s premise and conclusions in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man influenced a generation of sociologists and scientists. In one of his main premises Gould posited that Dr. Samuel Morton’s (1799–1851) study of skulls was dictated by his belief that brain size as determined by skull dimensions was a measure of intelligence. Gould contended that Morton’s scientific results and measurements were influenced by preconceived notions. I never believed Gould’s conclusions and could not understand how influential they had become. I looked back at my copy of his book and noted I had stopped reading at page 225 because I had spent too much time writing comments in the book. I knew Gould was wrong and was an example of the old Chinese proverb- “Man who points finger has three fingers pointing back”- (at himself). It was not the nineteenth century scientist such as Morton who used and twisted scientific data but others with agendas who believed skull size, physiognomy or some other aspect of anatomy could predict behavior and actions. When it was all said and done by the turn of the century even criminologist Alphonse Bertillon who developed a detailed system of body measurements gave up the idea a criminal could be identified by body descriptions. Cesare Lombroso (1835 –1909) and others involved with criminal anthropology were similarly shown not to be accurate determinants. There have always been protagonists to use selective scientific data for their own agendas.

Recently scientists at The University of Pennsylvania, where Morton’s skull collection remains re-studied the skulls and determined that Morton’s measurements were indeed correct, and it was Gould who manipulated his data. Morton was simply measuring his skulls to study human variation…(The Photographs above were part of a similar US Government study documenting the world’s people.) In the nineteenth century scientists were measurers they measured everything – all aspects of nature hoping to come up with a theory of why disease or other events happened from the data they compiled. They did not measure with preconceived notions- it took a twentieth century scientist who had learned the benefits of writing with an popular agenda and goal to develop an idea that was trendy.

The New York Times (June 14, 2011, Nicholas Wade) reported on the recent study by Pennsylvania scientists and reported the published comments of modern researchers who now state that ‘almost every detail of his (Gould’s) analysis is wrong’ they also note Gould’s own analysis is ‘a stronger example of bias influencing results.’ Morton did not make the errors attributed to him by Gould and the current lead scientist describing Gould’s work states ‘I can’t say if they were deliberate.’ An authority at Columbia University simply notes: ‘I just didn’t trust Gould…I just felt he was a charlatan.’

Click HERE to read The New York Times Article

Burns' Donation to Green-Wood Cemetery

2011-06-15T13:14:00.000-04:00

The Green-Wood Cemetery will be acquiring an album long in the Burns Collection. Dr.Burns first exhibited the album in 1978. It is a rare example of a complete theatre album by Napoleon Sarony (1820-1896) who was the top celebrity portraitist of his time. Sarony is noted for his images of stage performers and other notables including Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain. The piece is a leather-bound carte de visite album commemorating the 100th performance on March 27th, 1875 of the successful production The Two Orphans at the Union Square Theatre (located between Broadway and 4th Ave).

The Two Orphans was a great success at the Union Square Theatre with over 150 performances. The production toured and was eventually brought to the Brooklyn Theatre, a run which ended tragically with the legendary Brooklyn Theatre Fire on December 5, 1876, which claimed the lives of over 278 (including audience members, theatre workers and actors).

The fire remains one of the most grievous in New York City history.

The Green-Wood Cemetery is the perfect resting place for this rare Sarony album. At the cemetery a monument was erected to honor the unknown dead and poor who died in the fire. Actress Kate Claxton who survived the fire is also interred there. Napoleon Sarony, the photographer, chose Green-Wood as his final resting place as well. The album will be listed as a partial gift from Dr. Burns.

The Cover and Spine of The Album. The Label with Sarony's famous signature is found on the other side of the front cover.

The Cast List

A page from the Album

Stage actress Kate Claxton who was considered 'cursed' after a hotel she stayed in following The Brooklyn Theatre Fire also went down in flames.

“We thought we were acting for the best in continuing the play as we did, with the hope that the fire would be put out without difficulty, or that the audience would leave gradually or quietly. But the result proved that it was not the right course… The curtain should have been kept down until the flames had been extinguished, or if it had been found impossible to cope with them, the audience should have been calmly informed that indisposition on the part of some member of the company, or some unfortunate occurrence behind the scenery compelled a suspension of the performance, and they should have been requested to disperse as quietly as they could. Raising the curtain created a draft which fanned the flames into fury.”—Kate Claxton, New York Times, November 30, 1885

The photo of Kate Claxton (above) and the following are all carte de visite photographs from the Sarony Two Orphans Theatre Album:

Image Courtesy of CharmaineZoe
Union Square Theatre

The Union Square Theatre operated from 1870 to 1936 when it was raised. It became a vaudeville and finally a movie house, when toward the end it was advertised as the only "American Soviet Kino" with a straight diet of Soviet films.

The Brooklyn Theatre After a Deadly Performance of The Two Orphans

The Brooklyn Theatre Fire (wikipedia)

...The Two Orphans, presented on the night of the fire, was a melodrama about two young homeless orphans separated by abduction. One was blind and fell into poverty-stricken circumstances; the other was kidnapped into an affluent household.[15] It had been particularly successful play, running for 180 performances in 1874 at the Union Square Theatre.[16] Originally Les Deux Orphelines, by Adolphe d'Ennery and Eugene Cormon,[14] it had been adapted to the American stage by Jackson N. Hart.[16] Shook and Palmer bought it to the Brooklyn Theatre in March, 1876 after an American tour, including one performance at the Brooklyn Theatre on April 12, 1875, two weeks before Sara Conway's death.[17] The 1876 run at the Brooklyn Theatre was well received but was ending.[18] At the time of the fire, Palmer indicated that a number of Union Square Theatre productions had been scheduled for the Brooklyn Theatre and that all the scenes and properties for "Ferrsol", "Rose Michel," "Conscience," and "Colonel Sellers," as well as the wardrobe for "The Two Orphans" and a suite of furniture for "Rose Michel" had been stored on the premises.[13]

Kate Claxton, H. S. Murdoch and J. B. Studley at first urged the audience to remain calm and be seated.[45] Thomas Rochford, head usher, went to the auditorium when he heard someone yell 'Fire!' "Mr. Studley and Mr. Murdoch sung out to the people to keep their seats. I also stopped quite a number going out who were making a rush. Finally a good many of them cooled down and took their seats."[51]

From his vantage point high in the family circle, Charles Vine thought that Claxton was “the nerviest woman I ever saw… [She] came out with J. B. Studley, and said the fire would be out in a few moments. She was white as a sheet, but she stood up full of nerve."[42]

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported Claxton saying, “There is no danger; the flames are a part of the play.” The assertion was disingenuous – fire had no part in the story – and would prove short lived. “As she spoke,” the Eagle continued in its December 6 coverage, “a burning piece of wood fell at her feet, and she uttered an involuntary exclamation of alarm. This broke the spell which had heretofore held the audience.”[52]

Panic erupted, and thought turned to quelling it. J. B. Studley in particular reasoned: "If I have the presence of mind to stand here between you and the fire, which is right behind me, you ought to have the presence of mind to go out quietly."[53] Kate Claxton echoed J. B. Studley's line, and stage manager J. W. Thorpe appeared,[34] also urging an orderly exit. But the audience was now thoroughly panicked and the people on the stage were ignored or went unheard.
Claxton later recalled, “We were now almost surrounded by flames; it was madness to delay longer. I took Mr. Murdoch by the arm and said 'Come, let us go.' He pulled away from me in a dazed sort of way and rushed into his dressing room, where the fire was even then raging … To leap from the stage into the orchestra in the hope of getting out through the front of the house would only be to add one more to the frantic, struggling mass of human beings who were trampling each other to death like wild beasts.”[45]

Claxton remembered that a private passage from the leading lady's dressing room ran through the basement to the box office, and through that she and Maude Harrison, the actress who played Henriette, the other orphan, bypassed much of the crush in the lobby.[45] Murdoch and Claude Burroughs thought there was sufficient time to grab street clothing from their dressing rooms − it was December and their stage costumes were flimsy. For want of creature comfort they became trapped and did not escape.[54] Some of the acting company left by the stage doors exiting onto Johnson Street,[51][55][56] but the fire on the stage soon became widespread, cutting those exits off. All of the remaining exits were in the front of the house, the main entrance exiting onto Washington street or the special exit doors leading into Flood's Alley.[24]

A Monument to the Unidentified Dead of the
Brooklyn Theatre Fire at Green-Wood Cemetery (Erected 1876).

Actress Kate Claxton who survived the fire was buried at Green-Wood in 1924.

Photographer Napoleon Sarony was Laid to Rest in Green-Wood in 1896.

A Celebration for Bellevue Literary Press at The National Arts Club

2011-06-09T13:48:00.003-04:00

Yesterday evening The Burns Archive was pleased to celebrate the anniversary Bellevue Literary Press's Pulitzer Prize winning title Tinkers. There were dramatic readings by actors Louis Cancelmi, Kathleen Butler and Bob Jaffe. The books read were Tinkers by Paul Harding, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Widow by Michelle Latiolais and The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak.

(The Burns Archive contributed the WWI photo upon which The Sojourn's cover was based.)

Bellevue Literary Press raises important issues that affect us all regarding illness, the human experience in the practice of medicine, and science policy, promotes science literacy in unaccustomed ways, and contributes to society new tools for thinking about our world. http://www.blpbooks.org/

Dr. Burns was happy to hear author Paul Harding mention that he was very interested in some postmortem photography books he had been eyeing in a local rare book shop for years. To Harding's surprise Dr. Burns explained that he was the creator of those books and that they are The Burns Archive's Sleeping Beauty Series. They were both happy to trade works.

New York Times: The Local East Village Covers Burns Archive Civil War Exhibit

2011-05-25T13:43:00.003-04:00

Selections from The Burns Archives. Montage by Tim Milk. All photos courtesy The Burns Archive.

We are pleased to announce that our exhibition at The Merchant's House Museum was featured by The New York Times Local by Tim Milk. To read the article The Pain of War at The Merchants House click HERE.

If you still haven't made it to The Merchant's House to see the exhibit there is still time!

New York's Civil War Soldiers –

Photographs of Dr. R. B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman.

Through Monday, August 1

Merchant's House Museum

29 East Fourth Street, New York, NY 10003

Open 12 to 5 p.m., Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

To purchase our new photography book Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R. B. Bontecou visit www.burnspress.com.

Clinician 1 Weekly Posts By Dr. Stanley B. Burns

2011-05-25T13:25:00.002-04:00

Frog Child (Simple Atrophic Type of Myopathy). Read More About This Image on Clinician 1.

Clinician 1 is proud to present a series of vintage medical photographs from the world renowned Burns Archive. Each week Dr. Burns will showcase an interesting clinical condition. Many are examples of the extremes of disease- in the era before antibiotics, steroids, pesticides, sanitary and antiseptic procedures were implemented.

VIEW PAST STORIES AVAILABLE ON CLINICIAN 1 BY CLICKING HERE

Still Breathing: Respiratory Images From The Burns Archive

2011-05-25T13:10:00.001-04:00

Listening to the Chest with a (Laennec Style) Monaural Stethoscope, France, C. 1915

This is a classic pose of a French physician listening to a patient’s chest with a monaural stethoscope. He is demonstrating the proper use and position of the instrument. European physicians used and posed with monaural stethoscopes until the mid-1930s. The monaural stethoscope invented in 1818 by French physician, Rene Laennec, remained the standard instrument for examining the chest in much of the world, because of European influences. In 1855, an American, Dr. G. Cammann, produced a practical and superior instrument, the binaural stethoscope with flexible rubber tubing. The binaural scope not only offered better acoustics but ambient sound was drowned out because both ears were used. Another major advantage is illustrated in this photograph. Not only did the short, about 7 inch, monaural instrument require physician to get close a patient who often had severe, contagious, infectious disease but the instrument also had to be placed squarely on the skin, again putting the physician uncomfortably close. The long rubber tubes of the binaural stethoscope allowed the physician to listen to the chest at a safer distance.

Street Doctor Selling Cough Syrup, Photographed by John Thomson, London, 1877

The population in a city’s poor and immigrant neighborhoods often mistrusted mainstream doctors. They preferred to be treated by self-medication and non-traditional therapies offered by local practitioners or street vendors. Too often the ailment turned out to be tuberculosis. While this nineteenth century scourge cut across all social classes it particularly struck those living in poorly ventilated cramped, city slums. This well dressed street doctor advertises his cough elixir to Londoners in 1877 claiming “Prevention better than Cure”. The doctor’s high shoes indicate a shortened leg-problem. English social photographer, John Thomson, took this picture for his book on street life in London. Patent medicines appeared to help most patients, as their base was usually alcohol, opium or some other powerful agent.

Tuberculous Loss of the Nose (Lupus), Montmeja, MD, Paris, 1868

The color dramatically draws attention to the raw, eaten away appearance of this patient’s face. Lupus, was a generic term used to describe any of the conditions in which a patient’s face looked like as thought it had been chewed by a wolf (Latin lupus). This is a case of superficial and deep tissue infection by tuberculosis. Cutaneous manifestations of tuberculosis were quite common in the pre-antibiotic era and had to be differentiated from syphilis. These ‘lupus’ patients often wore masks or covered their face when in public. Because the public could not often identify the difference between the facial deformities caused tuberculosis from those caused by syphilis, social ostracism became the norm.

Ozena: Tuberculosis of the Nose, Circa 1870

There was one problem with extensive loss of the nose that was difficult to hide, the dreaded infection ‘ozena.’ Ozena was an ailment of much prominence in the pre-bacteriological/antibiotic era because it accompanied many infectious and neoplastic diseases of the nose. Ozena is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘to stink’. The infection of the nasal cavities resulted in a foul nasal discharge and a fetid breath. Nasal sprays or the inhalation of various chemical vapors were often prescribed. With the development of bacteriology the organisms causing ozena were identified as Klebsiella ozena and Bacillus foetidus. With the conquest by antibiotics of tuberculosis and syphilis ozena is mainly seen today as a manifestation of atrophic rhinitis, a marked degeneration of the nasal mucosa. This occurs most commonly as a hereditary malady but is also associated with the injudicious use of nasal sprays and drops.

The Great Lung Renovator, Photographic Advertisement, Indiana, Circa 1880

Physicians advertising began as photographic technology improved and the costs reduced. In Terra Haute, Indiana, Dr J. S. Gordon promoted himself as ‘The Developer of The Lung Renovator - The Great Lung Therapy.’ Lung disease was the number one killer in the nineteenth century and some physicians capitalized on the publics need for a therapy. Some of the efforts were laudable while others were not.

Respiratory Assistance for the Premature Infant: Nurses with an Incubator, 1897

Under developed lungs with concomitant respiratory distress is among the serious problems a premature infant faces and one of the leading causes of their death. One of the marvels at the turn of the century was the invention of the incubator by Marx of New York. The incubator was used to treat and nurture premature infants delivering warm air to a vented closed heated container. The simple warmth helped babies survive. Although today younger and younger infants are surviving because of the care received in the modern neonatal units, respiratory function remains one of the major hurdles.

Artificial Sun Lamp Therapy (Phototherapy), Dr. Neils Finsen, 1918

It was the pioneer work of Danish physician, Neils Ryberg Finsen, M.D. (1860-1904) in light therapy that set other minds working to develop a wide range of light treatment modalities from heliotherapy to the sun lamp. In 1893, in Copenhagen, he began his experiments showing ultraviolet rays either stimulated growth or killed the bacteria in lower organisms. In further research he studied the effect of light on living organisms and by 1896, had created the field of “phototherapy.” Finsen was able to demonstrate that invisible ultraviolet light, had therapeutic value.

Dr. Edward Trudeau and Camp Style Hospitals for Tuberculosis

In the last decades of the nineteenth century Edward Livingston Trudeau, M.D. (1848-1915) and others established the efficacy of rest and fresh air treatment for tuberculosis and other chronic lung conditions. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century hundreds of outdoor hospitals, sanitariums and rest homes were established in the United States. The most common type of tuberculosis quarters were associated with an established hospital. On hospital grounds hundreds of private isolation huts as seen here were built. Nurses and doctors made rounds on the patients as if they were on one huge ward. Many patients were housed for extended periods of times sometimes for years. In the charity hospitals of the era working class patients were housed in long wards with outdoor terraces or in good whether beds or cots were brought outside for their use. In some localities public and social conscious societies paid for patients to have some time of the year at special isolation camps.

More In-depth Accounts Of These Stories and Many Others Can Be Found In:

RESPIRATORY DISEASE: A Photographic History, 1845-1945 (4 Volumes)

Civil War Round Table 60th Anniversary Dinner

2011-05-12T12:27:00.000-04:00

Former President Howard Simon (A Surgeon) About to Cut the Cake with a Civil War Sword
The CWRT of New York was organized in 1951 to keep alive the history of the Civil War.

It should not surprise anyone that many people remain deeply interested in that unusual period of American history from 1861 to 1865. The Civil War, known by many other names in different parts of the country, has been romanticized and militarily dissected more than any other war in history.

To help keep the history of the time alive, a number of men and women organized The Civil War Round Table of New York in 1951. They included reporters, historians, professors, military personnel and many others. Over the years, more than 175 such organizations have brought together people interested in the war.

To Learn More Visit the NY Civil War Roundtable Website HERE

Click Below to See a Larger Version of the Slideshow

CBS NEWS Coverage- Cancer in the 1800s

2011-05-10T10:44:00.001-04:00

CBS News Heathwatch has produced another feature with Dr. Burns- Cancer in the 1800s: 23 Rare Photos From the Burns Archive. View images ranging from the first surgical procedure involving the anesthetic sulfuric ether to a remarkable story of the removal of a giant ovarian tumor. Please click HERE to view the feature.

America's war on cancer? With 600,000 Americans dying of the disease each year, we're still a long way from declaring victory. But doctors have come a very long way in their abilities to detect and treat cancer - as these 19th Century photos make abundantly clear. They appear courtesy of New York ophthalmologist Dr. Stanley B. Burns, whose collection of early medical photography is one of the world's largest.

New York’s Civil War Soldiers- The Exhibition & Opening at The Merchant's House Museum

2011-05-05T17:49:00.001-04:00

Below are images from the installation and opening of New York’s Civil War Soldiers: Photographs of Dr. R. B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman. The Merchant's House Museum, built in 1832 served as an ideal location for the display of the Burns Collection's Civil War photography and ephemera. After a lecture in the period front parlor and book signing on the lower level, guests enjoyed a warm spring evening in the 'secret garden'. Everyone seemed to be able to enjoy the hors d'œuvres despite a sensitive yet graphic lecture depicting hospital gangrene and amputation.

Visitors Enjoy the 7th Regiment Display

Dr. Burns Adding Finishing Touches

The Tersa Viele Civil War Photo Album

Display Case With Civil War Surgical and Bone Specimen Photos
Along with an Amputation Kit

Stereoviews, Brady Images, a Tintype of Volunteer Nurses

Postwar Books, Medals, and Stereoviews Among Other Items

Some Battlefield Images, an Ambrotype of a Confederate Solder,
The New York Herald & Harper's Weekly Papers

One of Four Display Shelves/Tables of Bontecou Medical Images
With Walt Whitman Excerpt from Specimen Days

More Bontecou Images Below the Table

Shelf of Bontecou Large 'Teaching Album' Photos
(The Second Shelf Displays 'Contributed' Images)

Dr. Burns Gives Jeff Rosenheim of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art a Special Tour

Guests Peruse Display Cabinets at the Reception

In the Garden

CLICK BELOW TO SEE THE SLIDE SHOW LARGER

Reminder- Civil War Photography Lecture & Reception Tonight

2011-05-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

Dr. Burns Will Lecture on

The Wounded Civil War Solder-

New York’s Civil War Soldiers:

Photographs of Dr. R. B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman

LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING TONIGHT, MAY 3, 6 P.M.
OPENING EXHIBITION RECEPTION TO FOLLOW AT 7 PM

If you wish to attend the lecture- please RSVP as it is nearly full!

RSVP TO education@merchantshouse.org or 212-777-1089

The Merchant’s House Museum

29 East Fourth Street (Between Lafayette and Bowery), New York, NY 10003

PREVIEW IMAGES FROM THE EXHIBITION

The Center Image is a Page from Dr.Bontecou's Wartime Album
The Larger Images Are From His Later Album
Below is the Sign From Bontecou's Private Practice

A Civil War Amputation Kit, Stereoviews...
The Two Large Images at The Botton are of Rowland Ward- Rare Plastic Surgery Case
(Multiple Operations to Create a Lower Jaw by NY Surgeon Gurdon Buck 1807-1877)

The 7th Regiment Case. In The Corner is a Photo of Charles Cunard Co A 7th NY
Wounded April 7th 1865 at The Battle of Bachelor's Home

Dr. Stanley Burns at The Merchant's House Museum

UPCOMING LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING MAY 3: THE WOUNDED CIVIL WAR SOLDIER

2011-04-27T17:18:00.000-04:00

LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING TUESDAY, MAY 3, 6 P.M.
OPENING EXHIBITION RECEPTION TO FOLLOW AT 7 PM

THE WOUNDED CIVIL WAR SOLDIER:
PHOTOGRAPHS BY R.B. BONTECOU FROM THE BURNS COLLECTION

**Please RSVP Space is limited, particularly for the 6 pm reading
RSVP TO education@merchantshouse.org or 212-777-1089

The Merchant’s House Museum
29 East Fourth Street (Between Lafayette and Bowery), New York, NY 10003

Dr. Burns will show, for the first time, exclusive images from the private photo albums of Reed Brockway Bontecou, MD. A significant new chapter in Civil War history is revealed with this first Exposé of the wartime clinical photographs of Dr. Bontecou. Michael Rhode, Chief Archivist, Otis Historical Archives has noted “Dr. Burns has done the medical and photographic history communities a great service by rescuing and making these images available....”

The Burns Collection houses Dr. Bontecou’s four original Civil War albums as well as medical equipment and ephemera relating to his personal life. Bontecou’s carte de visite album is the premier medical photograph album of the Civil War. No other large compilation of wartime clinical images exists, with over 570 images. Almost all the photos were taken during the war or immediately after in the spring of 1865. The public and the historical community have never before seen most of these images.

Advanced copies of Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography By R.B. Bontecou will be available at the lecture for $50.

This lecture is in conjunction with the The Merchant’s House Museum exhibition
New York’s Civil War Soldiers – Photographs of Dr. R. B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman
Exhibition runs through Monday, August 1, 2011

Sleeping Beauties: Memorial Photographs from the Burns Archive- Lecture and Installation Views

2011-04-18T18:39:00.003-04:00

APRIL 14- MAY 31 2011-

Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery

The Burns Archive is pleased to announce that the installation, reception and lecture for our Baltimore postmortem exhibit was a great success. Special thanks goes to Tom Beck, Chief Curator of the Albin O. Kuhn Gallery and his staff. Stay in touch, we will be posting a video of the lecture soon.

With over 300 linear feet of paper images and 6 cases containing ambrotypes, tintypes, daguerreotypes and more- it is the largest postmortem photography exhibit to date.

For as much as people of the 21st century avoid the subjects of death and postmortem photography, those of the 19th century embraced it. The living were depicted with their deceased loved ones with whom they were often not portrayed previously. The personal nature of postmortem imagery frequently makes it difficult for us to view memorial images from the past much less from our own time. This exhibition will survey memorial photography from the 19th through 21st centuries and show how the artistic efforts of the photographers contributed to the emotional qualities of the images. The imagery connects us across the generations to those who would have died unnoticed had they not been given by photographic means a kind of immortality.

Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery . University of Maryland, Baltimore County . 1000 Hilltop Circle . Baltimore MD 21250

Dr. Stanley Burns

Installation View, First Room

Postmortem Photo-Montage Images (Spirit Photo on Far Right)

Postmortem Images with Family

Contemporary Images by Todd Hochberg

Mourning Dress

One of Six Cases

Coffin Plates

First Case With Daguerreotypes & Ambrotypes of Children

Second Case With Daguerreotypes & Ambrotypes of Children

Dr. Burns Lecturing about His Postmortem Collection

Reception Following the Lecture

Dr. Burns With Tom Beck (Chief Curator)

More images from the exhibition below

CLICK BELOW TO VIEW A LARGER VERSION OF THE SLIDESHOW

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WNYC NEWS: THE BURNS ARCHIVE CIVIL WAR EXHIBITION

2011-04-18T10:38:00.000-04:00

Merchant's House to Display Photos of New York Civil War Regiment Soldiers

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

By Julia Botero

On April 13, 1861, the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina surrendered to Confederate troops. Two days later, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen to pick up their rifles and squelch the southern rebellion. The American Civil War was on.

In honor of the soldiers who put their lives on the line in the ensuing four years of war, the Merchant's House Museum in Manhattan is presenting a series of photographs of wounded Civil War soldiers who served in New York regiments. The exhibit marks the first time any of the photographs will be displayed to the public in the 150 years since the war.

Military historian and Civil War reenactor Robert Mulligan, who is from Albany, said the New York battalions included some notable troops.

"One was in the box with Lincoln when Lincoln was shot, and another was the first union officer killed in the war, Elmer Ellsworth," he said.

Each photograph at the Merchant's House Museum exhibit was taken by Reed Brockway Bontecou, who was the surgeon in charge of Washington, D.C.'s Harewood U.S. Army General Hospital. When the war ended, the photographs became the largest part of the government’s war medical photograph collection.

Mulligan has for years played the roles of Corporal James Tamer of the 86th New York Infantry and Sargent Rice C. Bull of the 103rd New York Infantry. Bull was injured in battle and Tamer lost both of his feet, but Mulligan doubted that either of the men passed through Bontecou's hospital.

"It was a hub of medical treatment, but I'd be surprised to find their photographs," he said. "There were just too many injured soldiers."

In 1975, a New York City ophthalmologist who had taken an interest to collecting historical photographs, Stanley B. Burns, acquired the photographs from the Bontecou family. He soon established the distinguished Burns Collection, which has since become the nation’s largest private comprehensive collection of early medical photography.

Dr. Burns has published two (of three) volumes of the Bontecou photographs. The most recent one, "Shooting Soldiers: The Civil War Medical Photography of Reed Bontecou," will be released on Thursday to coincide with the opening of the Merchant's House exhibition.

At the exhibit, more then 100 graphic photographs of human disfigurement will be accompanied by passages from Walt Whitman's "Specimen Days," a memoir of his horrific experiences as a volunteer nurse. Along with other images and memorabilia of the time, the words tell the real story of the Civil War that Whitman said would "never get into the books."

To see the article on the WNYC website and view the slide show click HERE

MEMORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY LECTURE THIS WEEK: APRIL 14 Dr. Burns Speaks at the Albin O. Kuhn Gallery, UMBC, Baltimore.

2011-04-11T15:13:00.000-04:00

Thursday, April 14, 2011, 4 p.m
Dr. Stanley Burns, author of three books on memorial photographs, will speak on "Photographing the Dead: A Process of Love, Remembrance and Grieving" in what is sure to be a fascinating lecture.

A reception with light refreshments will follow the lecture.
This event is open to the public and admission is free.

The lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition:

Sleeping Beauties
Memorial Photographs from the Burns Archive
April 11 – May 31, 2011

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery Press Release:
For as much as people of the 21st century avoid the subjects of death and postmortem photography, those of the 19th century embraced it. The living were depicted with their deceased loved ones with whom they were often not portrayed previously. The personal nature of postmortem imagery frequently makes it difficult for us to view memorial images from the past much less from our own time. This exhibition will survey memorial photography from the 19th through 21st centuries and show how the artistic efforts of the photographers contributed to the emotional qualities of the images. The imagery connects us across the generations to those who would have died unnoticed had they not been given by photographic means a kind of immortality.

Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery . University of Maryland, Baltimore County . 1000 Hilltop Circle . Baltimore MD 21250

Exhibition and Book Signing: Romancing The Bug

2011-04-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

Stanley Burns and Alice Lease Dana

EXHIBITION PREVIEW:

We are Pleased to Announce The Exhibition and Book Signing

ROMANCING THE BUG

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALICE LEASE DANA

EXHIBITION APRIL 3-23, 2011

RECEPTION AND BOOK SIGNING
FRIDAY APRIL 8, 2011 6PM – 8PM

THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB
15 Gramercy Park South
New York, NY 10003

Romancing the Bug is an exhibition of photographs presented in contemporary and antique frames. Alice Dana’s flower and insect photographs are fresh and colorful images of one of the most basic natural processes for the maintenance of life on earth. With the delight of new discoveries Dana captured these relationships with an appreciation for the beauty of the forces and harmony of nature. The actions displayed are often fleeting, and certainly intense, for each insect as it interacts with a flower, goes about its business swiftly and then departs. These photographs offer a revealing look at the propagation of life. Insects- loathed creatures to most of us- become beautiful partners in our love of the planet.

Order Romancing the Bug from

BURNS ARCHIVE PRESS • $25.00

140 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016

212.889.1938

A Slideshow of Images from Romancing the Bug: