The photographic holdings of The Connecticut Historical Society include images of virtually every town in the state. Hartford is especially well-represented in photographs collected by Samuel Taylor and in negatives taken by the commercial photographer William G. Dudley. Also well-represented are significant events such as the Blizzard of 1888, the Flood of 1936 and the Hurricane of 1938. Portrait holdings are especially strong for the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but also include early daguerreotypes by Augustus Washington and other Connecticut photographers. Photographs documenting Connecticut businesses such as the Hartford Electric Light Company are another strength of the collection. A selection of these images is now available in Connecticut History Online.

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The early history of the Hartford Fire Department, from its beginnings through the 1950s, is documented in a large collection of photographs, many of them donated by Horace B. Clark.

Images by the commercial photographer William G. Dudley reflect the daily life of Hartford and the surrounding area during the 1910s and 1920s.
Ref. # 1995.36.497

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The African-American daguerreotypist Augustus Washington operated a successful portrait studio in Hartford from the early 1840s through the early 1850s.

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