Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection
About this collection
The Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection contains approximately 1,300 nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photographs of architecture, decorative arts and sculpture. A.D. White (1832-1918) was Cornell University’s co-founder and first president. He established the collection, donating several thousand images from his personal architectural library to the University. Approximately 1,300 of those images have been digitized for this online collection.
A.D. White's Architectural Photographs were transferred to Cornell University Library from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning in 1998. Prior to its transfer to the Library, the collection had a long history of use as an educational tool for Cornell faculty and students. The collection fell out of active use, however, once color slides assumed the role of visual aids in classroom lectures. The photographs were then placed in storage in a series of College buildings: first in the attic of Tjaden Hall, then later in the basement of Sibley Hall, and then finally in the basement of Rand Hall.
Historical context
Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University’s first president, had a lifelong passion for architecture. He was also a lifelong collector and amassed a sizeable library of architectural books, photographs, drawings, plaster casts and models. Soon after the founding of Cornell University, White proposed to the university trustees the establishment of a program for the instruction of architecture, pledging to transfer his own library to the university. In 1871, the Cornell University Department of Architecture was established as the first four-year course in architecture at an American university.
After his retirement from the Cornell University Presidency in 1885, White continued to purchase photographs for student use, especially during his frequent trips abroad. The photographs White so carefully selected as pedagogical tools serve today as historical documents.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.
Using the collection
The metadata for items in this collection include detailed location information as well as photographer information, which can be used as filters to aid in browsing the collection.
For more information about the collection, contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.
More information
- Collection steward
- Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts
- Metadata creation
- Cornell University Library
- Funding
- 13,000 photographs were digitized 2001-2003 by Cornell University Library
- Credits
- This collection overview was last reviewed by Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts in 2025.
- Collection sources