Josiah Johnson Hawes was a photographer in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. He and Albert Southworth

Albert Southworth

thumb|Albert Southworth, circa 1848Albert Sands Southworth operated Southworth & Hawes daguerreotype studio with Josiah Johnson Hawes from 1843 to 1863.-Biography:...

 established the photography studio of Southworth & Hawes

Southworth & Hawes

Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843-1863. Its partners, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes , have been hailed as the first great American masters of photography, whose work elevated photographic portraits to the level of fine art...

, which produced numerous portraits of exceptional quality in the 1840s-1860s.

Biography

J.J. Hawes was born in Wayland, Massachusetts

Wayland, Massachusetts

Wayland is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,994 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on Cochituate, which is part of Wayland, please see the article Cochituate, Massachusetts.-History:...

 in 1808. He began his career as a portrait painter. He then studied photography in Boston with Francis Fauvel-Gouraud.

In 1843 he and Southworth formed Southworth & Hawes, with studios on Tremont Row

Tremont Row

Tremont Row in Boston, Massachusetts, was a short street that flourished in the 19th and early-20th centuries. It was located near the intersection of Court, Tremont, and Cambridge streets, in today's Government Center area. It existed until the 1920s, when it became known as Scollay Square...

, in Boston's Scollay Square

Scollay Square

Scollay Square was a vibrant city square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was named for William Scollay, a prominent local developer and militia officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of Cambridge and Court Streets in 1795...

. The studio produced daguerreotype

Daguerreotype

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....

 portraits of many notables, including Lemuel Shaw

Lemuel Shaw

Lemuel Shaw was an American jurist who served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court...

, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

, Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...

, and others. The studio rooms overlooked "a fine orchard, belonging to the Gardiner Greene

Gardiner Greene

Gardiner Greene was a merchant from Boston, Massachusetts who conducted business in Demerara in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Socially prominent in the town of Boston, he owned a house, greenhouse, and garden filled with fruit trees and peacocks on Cotton Hill, opposite Scollay Square...

 estate. From these windows, facing Scollay Sq., we looked on the church

Brattle Street Church

The Brattle Street Church was a Congregational and Unitarian church on Brattle Street in Boston, Massachusetts.- Brief history :...

 and gardens of Brattle Street

Brattle Street (Boston, Massachusetts)

Brattle Street was a street in Boston, Massachusetts located on the current site of City Hall Plaza, at Government Center.-History:Around 1853 former Virginia slave Anthony Burns worked for "Coffin Pitts, clothing dealer, no.36 Brattle Street."...

"

In 1849 Hawes married Nancy Stiles Southworth (Albert’s sister). They had three children: Alice, Marion and Edward.

After the partnership with Southworth dissolved in 1863, Hawes continued as a photographer on Tremont Row for several decades, through the 1890s. In his later years he was known as the "oldest working photographer in this country."

Further reading

• Treasures in Pictures; Many Famous Photographs Made by the Veteran Josiah Johnson Hawes. Boston Daily Globe, Feb 21, 1898. p.9.
• Josiah Johnson Hawes, dies in his ninety-fourth year. Boston Transcript, Aug.9, 1901.
• Oldest Phtographer Dead; He Was Josiah Johnson Hawes, Friend of Dickens, Rufus Choate, and Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. New York Times, Aug 10, 1901. p.7.
• The past and present. Photo-Era Magazine. 1901.
• I.N. Phelps Stokes. The Hawes-Stokes collection of American daguerreotypes by Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1939.
• Rachel Johnston Homer, ed. The legacy of Josiah Johnson Hawes; 19th century photographs of Boston. Barre, Mass.: Barre Publishers, 1972.
• C. Moore. Two partners in Boston: the careers and Daguerreian artistry of Albert Southworth and Josiah Hawes. University of Michigan, 1975.

External links

• WorldCat. Hawes, Josiah Johnson 1808-1901
• Boston Public Library on Flickr. Josiah Johnson Hawes Photographs
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, works by J.J. Hawes
• Boston Athenaeum, works by J.J. Hawes.
• George Eastman House, on Flickr, works by Southworth & Hawes
• International Center of Photography, 2005 exhibition of Southworth & Hawes
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, works by J.J. Hawes