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

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.

A Celebration for Bellevue Literary Press at The National Arts Club

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

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.

Still Breathing: Respiratory Images From The Burns Archive

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

(All Images © The Burns Archive)

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Stanley Burns and Alice Lease Dana

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

    A reception and book signing for the release of Romancing the Bug accompanied 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 • $24.00

140 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016

212.889.1938

A Slideshow of Images from Romancing the Bug:

LISTEN TODAY 3:00pm-4:00pm EST Dr.Burns on The Conversation with Ross Reynolds

Dr. Burns was interviewed about The Burns Collection on Seattle's NPR Station KUOW, The Conversation with Ross Reynolds. 

You could have listened live, from 3:00pm-4:00pm EST on March 31st, 2011, by clicking HERE.

Subsequently, it could have been found HERE.

The Conversation is no longer on the air, however, but it has been archived.

"The Conversation covers current events in politics, public affairs, culture and science. Host Ross Reynolds opens the phone for listeners to participate in spirited discussions on the issues of the day. 

Twitter: KUOWRoss | Facebook: KUOWRoss"

To find stories by The Conversation older than October 15, 2012, go to www2.kuow.org and select "The Conversation" from the show dropdown menu in the search function.

CBS NEWS Coverage- Eye Care in the 1800s

CBS News Online covered the Burns Archive with the story Eye Care in the 1800s: 14 Shocking Photos From the Burns Archive. The article became the most popular on cbsnews.com last week. 

Please check out the coverage here.

Sleeping Beauty III Book Release, Lecture & Reception at The Merchant's House Museum

Dr. Burns Lecturing on the History of Postmortem Photography

Dr. Burns Speaking about the Exhibition Memento Mori

Eva Ulz- Education Coordinator and Curator of
Memento Mori: The Birth & Resurrection of Postmortem Photography

Dr. Burns Signing Sleeping Beauty

Sarah Simms, Dr. Stanley Burns, Lissa Rivera, Leslie Hodgkins, Hal Hirshorn