Commercially Manufactured Plain Papers in the United States, 1860–1900

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the manufacture and use of commercial plain papers in the United States between 1860 and 1900. Although plain paper printing is thought to have fallen out of use in the United States after the 1850s, an examination of photography manuals and periodicals published in the United States during the subsequent decades reveals a surprising number of advertisements for and tipped-in samples of manufactured plain papers. These texts and sample prints are valuable resources for conservators and historians of photography because they reveal the varied uses these papers were put to, the kinds of consumers who bought them, and the procedures for working them. The extant samples are also significant as evidence of the visual and material qualities of commercially available plain paper prints. This article will focus on three plain papers: Alabaster Paper, manufactured by Follett & Johnson of New York in the 1860s; Licht-paus Paper, produced by Romain Talbot of Berlin in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s; and American Matt-Surface Paper, manufactured by John R. Clemons of Philadelphia in the 1890s.