Table Rock · Cave of the Winds

**George Barker** (1844-1894) ~ [Niagara Falls], ca. 1888. Albumen silver print. View of Niagara Falls taken from the base of the falls, with large boulder in foreground and footbridge in the background. | src Getty Museum Coll.

**George Barker** (1844-1894) ~ Cave of the winds, ca. 1888. Niagara Falls with walkway in the foreground. Albumen silver print. | src Library of Congress

This Image is hosted in four American museums; three of them (Library of Congress, Getty Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art) acknowledge the authorship to George Barker. According to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art [x] this photograph is Nielson’s. In their website there is a mention to the photographer’s logo on back: “H.F. Nielson, Manuf. of all kinds of / Paper & Glass Views / Niagara Falls.”

Though the commercial market for large-scale landscape views was limited in the late 19th century, a small group of talented and savvy photographers found a lucrative niche in this genre. Herman F. Nielson, who lived most of his life in Niagara, New York, specialized in majestic tourist views of Niagara Falls. Here, Nielson depicts the American Falls (Luna Falls and Bridal Veil Falls) and the Rock of Ages. This view, or a slight variant, was reproduced in a popular guidebook at the time.

“New View Manufactory,” Niagara Falls Gazette 30:16 (October 10, 1883): n.p.

quoted from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art [x]

**George Barker** (1844-1894) ~ Niagara Falls, ca. 1888 Albumen silver print from glass negative | src The Met

**George Barker** (1844-1894) ~ Cave of the winds, ca. 1888. Image of rushing waterfalls leading down to a bridge with large rocks in the foreground. | Library of Congress

**George Barker** (1844-1894) ~ Ruins of Table Rock, ca. 1870. Stereograph. Albumen print on stereo card. | Library of Congress

Stereograph showing a portion of Table Rock that has fallen off the cliff, with Niagara Falls in the background. | Library of Congress

The Niagara Falls, ca. 1855

**Platt D. Babbitt ::** [Niagara Falls], ca. 1855. Daguerreotype in leather case. | src MFAH · Museum of Fine Arts Houston

**Platt D. Babbitt** (American, active 1840s–70s) :: The Niagara Falls, ca. 1850. Daguerreotype | src The Met

**Platt D. Babbitt** (American, active 1840s–70s) :: The Niagara Falls, ca. 1850. Daguerreotype in leather case | src The Met

**Platt D. Babbitt** (American, 1823 – 1879) :: [Scene at Niagara Falls]; about 1855. Daguerreotype.

In the 1800s Prospect Point at Niagara Falls was a popular destination for travelers in search of a transcendent encounter with nature. The falls were revered as a sacred place that was recognized by the Catholic Church in 1861 as a “pilgrim shrine,” where the faithful could contemplate the landscape as an example of divine majesty.

Platt D. Babbitt would customarily set up his camera in an open-sided pavilion and photograph groups of tourists admiring the falls without their knowledge, as he appears to have done here. Later he would sell the unsuspecting subjects their daguerreotype likenesses alongside the natural wonder. | quoted from Getty Museum

**Platt D. Babbitt ::** [Scene at Niagara Falls], ca. 1855. Daguerreotype | src Getty Museum Collection

Two well-dressed couples are seen from behind as they stand on the shore downstream from the falls, gazing at its majestic splendor. The silhouetted forms–women wearing full skirts and bonnets and carrying umbrellas and men in stovepipe hats–are sharply outlined against the patch of shore and expansive, white foam. | quoted from Getty Museum