Cronise Studio

Thomas Jefferson Cronise was born on October 11, 1853 in Peru, Ill. to Henry and Louise Hosmer Cronise. The family later moved to Seville, Oh., and when Thomas was fourteen, he apprenticed as a printer with newspaper owner John Clark in Wadsworth, Oh. and later worked for newspapers in Seville and York, Oh. In 1875, Thomas’ older brother, Harry H. Cronise, moved to Oregon. Five years later, Thomas followed his brother west and moved to Spokane, Wash., later moving to Salem, Or. in 1882. He first worked in Salem for a printing business owned by Mrs. A. L. Stinson and later for R. J. Hendricks, owner of the Oregon Statesman .

In 1884, Thomas Jefferson Cronise married Nellie Riggs, daughter of Oregon pioneers Rufus and Evelyn Nicklin Riggs. By 1886, Thomas operated his own print shop in Salem in the State Insurance Building on Commercial Street, and from 1891-1893, he partnered with Gaylord W. Cooke in a commercial printing firm. However, due to an allergy to printer’s ink, Thomas eventually ended his career as a printer and took up photography. In 1893, he joined his sister, Anna Louise, who had moved from Ohio to Salem the year before, at her photography studio at the corner of State and High Streets, and the two advertised themselves as “Cronise & Cronise, The Photographers.”

In 1893, Anna Louise Cronise married Howard D. Trover, a photographer who worked in the Cronise & Cronise studio. After that year, Thomas Jefferson Cronise left the partnership, and Anna and Howard continued to operate the business as Cronise Photo Studio. Thomas did not pursue photography again until 1902, when he opened the Tom Cronise Photo Studio in the Bush-Brey Building at Commercial and Court in Salem; to avoid confusion, Anna and Howard Trover renamed their studio in 1907 as the Trover-Cronise Photo Studio. The location for Thomas' new studio was one used previously by other influential Salem photographers, including William P. Johnson; portrait photographer Myra E. Sperry, also known as “Sperry the Artist"; and Preston M. Hart and Martha F. McLennon's Elite Studio.

Thomas Jefferson Cronise died in 1927, and his youngest son, Harold ("Harry") W. Cronise, helped Nellie Cronise run the business for the next few years. In 1930, Harry Cronise assumed sole ownership of Cronise Photo Studio. He ran the business until circa 1973.

From the guide to the Cronise Studio records, 1867-1973, 1902-1973, (Oregon Historical Society)