Hart, Alfred A., 1816-1908

Alfred A. Hart, born in Norwich, Connecticut on March 16, 1816, was the principal photographer for the Central Pacific Railroad during the construction of the Overland Route. He photographed the construction from 1865 to 1869 when the last spike was driven by Leland Stanford at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869. Although he worked as a photographer as early as 1857, Hart was trained as a portrait and landscape artist; after his work for the Central Pacific, he continued to paint and was awarded the gold medal for his paintings at an exhibition at the California State Fair in 1872. Nonetheless, Hart is remembered for his work in visually documenting the construction of the western half of the first transcontinental railroad.

Biography

Alfred A. Hart, born in Norwich, Connecticut on March 16, 1816, was the principal photographer for the Central Pacific Railroad during the construction of the Overland Route. He photographed the construction from 1865 to 1869 when the last spike was driven by Leland Stanford at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.

Although he worked as a photographer as early as 1857, Hart was trained as a portrait and landscape artist; after his work for the Central Pacific, he continued to paint and was awarded the gold medal for his paintings at an exhibition at the California State Fair in 1872. Nonetheless, Hart is remembered for his work in visually documenting the construction of the western half of the first transcontinental railroad.

It is not clear just how Hart managed to be hired as principal photographer for the CPRR. Ironically, Carleton E. Watkins was a life-long friend of Collis P. Huntington (CPRR's business manager), and Watkins performed as a photographer for the railway after Hart's commission was completed. It is possible that Watkins was so well known during the time of the railroad construction that the Central Pacific may have thought his professional fees would have been more demanding than Alfred Hart's. Yet, according to Charles B. Turrill, photographer and biographer of Carleton Watkins, the friendship between Huntington and Watkins was so dear that bills and payments were of secondary consideration, and that Watkins did not require any payment for his services with the Central Pacific. Because we are lacking information about Hart and Watkins it is difficult to draw clear conclusions as to why Hart was given this opportunity instead of Watkins.

Hart quite clearly and consciously used his artistic talents while giving an honest representation of the railroad construction. Andrew Russell, photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad, undoubtedly attempted to bring art into the documentation of his portion of the railroad line, but he was at a circumstantial disadvantage because his route was more desolate. The terrain in Hart's territory was much more aesthetically pleasing, and offered a wider variety of back-drops to his construction scenes. While Russell focused much more on trains, construction and frontier towns along the way, Hart was able to turn his camera to mountain lakes and quiet river banks, giving his images a more universal appeal competitive with landscape photography of his day. Hart's highly artistic railroad views were much more than mere documentation; they were such fine examples of photographic imagery that they were able to help set a trend of producing stereo cards in special series independent of the railway commission and separate from large publishers. Selling his stereo views thus became a successful commercial endeavor.

Hart was working in a period when the wet collodion plate was the most modern process available. This cumbersome process was a vast improvement over the earlier daguerreotype in that it produced a more desirable image with a more realistic reproduction, even though the process itself was complicated. Collodion had to be applied evenly on a clean glass plate, which was sensitized in a bath of silver nitrate. Next, the photographer had to wait a few minutes to allow the bromides and iodides of the prepared collodion to react with the silver nitrate; then a minutes-long exposure was made while the plate was still wet. Removing the still-wet plate from the camera while in a darkened area, the photographer quickly poured developing solution evenly over the glass. From this point the glass had to be rinsed thoroughly with clean water, a commodity not always readily available to field photographers. The image was then fixed by immersing the plate in a solvent of silver iodide until the salts were freed. Again the glass had to be rinsed to rid it of all chemicals, and then it was dried by passing it over the heat of a lamp flame. Finally, the plate was varnished (while still warm from the lamp) in order to protect the emulsion.

In addition to all this hazardous chemical processing Alfred Hart had to endure, as a field photographer his equipment consisted of a view camera (probably about 18 by 22 inches from front to back), complete with tripod, plate holder and slides, all made from solid wood. Other items on his list of weighty, but essential, equipment were ground glass, lenses, shutters, glass plates, and a dark tent, all of which had to be transported above and beyond points reached by railroad workers.

After 1869 Hart continued to work as a photographer and moved around the country selling his photographs. Carleton Watkins acquired some of Hart's negatives in 1869 where they were kept in his San Francisco studio. Prints from the negatives were sold to the public. Unfortunately, Hart's negatives were destroyed the 1906 earthquake along with the rest of Watkins' studio, but not before enough prints had been produced and sold to allow for the survival of most of the Central Pacific Railroad collection.

From 1872 to 1878 Hart worked in San Francisco as a portrait and landscape painter. He died on March 5, 1908 at the Alameda County Infirmary.

[Taken from Mary Blessing's essay, "Alfred A. Hart: Frontier Photographer," 1979]

For more information about Hart and his photographic techniques, see Glenn Willumson's master's thesis Alfred A. Hart: Photographer of the Transcontinental Railroad. (UC Davis, 1984)

Biography

Alfred A. Hart was born in Norwich, Connecticut on March 28, 1816. His father was a silversmith. Hart went to New York in 1838 to study art, subsequently returning to Norwich in 1840 where he married and began a career as an itinerant portrait painter. Hart moved to Hartford, Connecticut in 1848, where he painted portraits and large scroll-like panoramas of religious scenes and landscapes. Hart formed a partnership with the Hartford daguerreotyper Henry H. Bartlett in 1857. In the early 1860's, Hart moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he ran a store selling picture frames, engravings and photographic supplies. By 1863 Hart was working as a portrait photographer. By 1865 Hart was in California making stereographic views along the line of track under construction for the Central Pacific Railroad. After January 1866 Hart was named the official photographer for the C.P.R.R. and for the next three years he documented the construction of the railroad across the mountains and onto the high plains of Utah. Hart photographed the joining of the rails at Promontory Point Utah in 1869. The C.P.R.R. selected 364 stereopgraphs for their official series of the construction, and Hart sold additional views to Lawrence & Houseworth for publication and distribution. Hart probably made other views at Yosemite and elsewhere in California for Lawrence & Houseworth as well. In the early 1870's Hart lived in Denver, Colorado, where he returned to painting portraits and landscapes. He continued this activity in San Francisco from 1872 to 1878, then returned to New York. He apparently moved back and forth between New York and California during the later years of his life, working at a variety of jobs. He died in California on March 5, 1908.