White particularly
admired the theories of the critic John Ruskin, and acquired
photographs that illustrate the edifices Ruskin had pronounced
masterpieces. Like Ruskin, White preferred Classical, Romanesque
and Gothic to Renaissance and Baroque architecture. He also
purchased sets of photographs that depicted contemporaneous
American architecture, including most of the work of Henry Hobson
Richardson (see the A. D. White Architectural Photographs Collections
H. H. Richardson Gallery
for a selection).
A. D. White
collected photographs of medieval British, French, German and
Italian architecture as well as images of Near Eastern and Classical
structures by important
photographers and photographic studios. Two particularly
large gifts came in 1880, while White was Minister to Berlin
for the first time, and in 1886. After
his retirement from the Cornell University Presidency in 1885,
White continued to purchase photographs for student use, especially
during his frequent trips abroad. In a letter to President Charles
Kendall Adams (his successor as President of Cornell University)
from Florence, Italy, dated May, 17, 1886, White states I
send you...about 300 photographs...of important public buildings
in England, France and Italy. The same to be held as a gift
to the University for the purposes of the department of architecture
and the general instruction of the students, under the agreement
already made that the entire collection
shall be preserved in the galleries reserved for that purpose...
In a subsequent
letter to Adams, dated May 28, 1886, White instructed, Have
[the photographs] put instantly into the cases...I have a
natural wish that all students and the friends of the University
shall see in these an outward & visible sign
of my state of inward & spiritual grace, which
is a continual devotion to the University which time & distance
& nominal separation only make stronger...I wish the
returning students to see those empty cases filled with these
beautiful new things. The
photographs White so carefully selected as pedagogical tools
serve today as historical documents. In many cases, they illustrate
buildings and urban spaces now destroyed or significantly altered.
Read
further details about the scope of the
Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection