Keystone Dry Plate Works

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Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1899 Keystone Dry Plate and Film Works.png
Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1899
Factory built for Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1879, showing appearance in February 2021. KeystoneDryPlateWorks-2021.jpg
Factory built for Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1879, showing appearance in February 2021.

The Keystone Dry Plate and Film Works was founded by John Carbutt in 1879 in Philadelphia, and its 113 Berkley Street location was constructed in Germantown in 1884. [1] The factory [2] became the location for his pioneering work in new photographic technologies, including improved glass plate photography, x-ray imaging, the first 35 mm celluloid film, and very early color photography procedures.

Carbutt developed the first gelatine-bromide dry plates (1879), the first orthochromatic dry plates (1886) and the first celluloid dry plates(1888) in this location. He produced the first 35mm film here and sold it to Thomas Edison. In 1888, he introduced the less than a decade-old Edison light bulb to increase productivity in his factory, [3] and in 1896, Carbutt began to manufacture the first x-ray plates for commercial use. [4] In his later years, Carbutt experimented with color photography. [5]

John Carbutt died in 1905. In the early 20th century the factory was bought by Defender Photo Supply, based in Rochester, NY, and became known as the Defender Dry Plate Company. From 1912 to 1977 the building was occupied by Moore Push Pin Company; Edwin Moore invented and patented the push pin, [6] [1] and subsequent occupants included a drug rehab facility. The building forms part of a cluster of 19th-century industrial buildings around Wayne Junction rail station.

In January 2021, Ken Weinstein, the current owner of the property through Wayne Junction Properties/Philly Office Retail, submitted a financial hardship application to the Philadelphia Historical Commission to permit the building to be demolished. [1]

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Photography Creating images by recording light

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Autochrome Lumière

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<i>Roundhay Garden Scene</i> Earliest surviving film (1888)

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History of photography

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Richard Leach Maddox

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John Carbutt English photographer

John Carbutt (1832–1905) was a photographic pioneer, stereo card publisher, and photographic entrepreneur. He came to be the first to use celluloid for photographic film and to market dry-plate glass negatives.

Nicholas Caire

Nicholas John Caire was an Australian photographer. Caire was born in Guernsey, Channel Islands, to Nicholas Caire and Hannah Margeret. As a boy Caire spoke French found he had a passion for photography that his parents encouraged. Caire moved to Adelaide, Australia, along with both his parents in 1860. Around this time Caire Found a mentor in Townsend Duryea. in 1867 he opened his own studio in Adelaide, Australia. He was married to Louisa Master in 1870 and then shortly after moved to Talbot, Victoria where he continued his photography and started to write for Life and Health Magazine. Caire died in 1918 in Armadale, Victoria.

Conservation and restoration of photographic plates

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Financial hardship application" (PDF). Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  2. Engelhardt, George Washington (1898–1899). Philadelphia Pennsylvania, The Book of Its Bourse & Co-operating Bodies. Philadelphia: Lippincott Press.
  3. Harding, Colin. "CELLULOID AND PHOTOGRAPHY, PART 1: CELLULOID AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR GLASS" . Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  4. Brey, William (1984). John Carbutt, on the Frontiers of Photography. Cherry Hill NJ: Willowdale Press. ISBN   0961395508.
  5. "John Carbutt at Historic Camera". historiccamera.com. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  6. "Moore Push-Pin Company incorporates". Philadelphia Inquirer. July 19, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2021.