‘At work with the Baillie’: Recognising Assistantship, Apprenticeship and Invisible Labour in Alexander Gardner’s Washington Gallery

Alexander Gardner is recognised as a pioneer in field photography, particularly that of the American Civil War and westward expansion between 1861 and 1867. Yet during this period, his practice in the field dovetailed with the portrait gallery he owned in Washington DC. Up to this point a coherent study of the organisation of labour of this combined operation has not been attempted, as research has tended to focus on the relationship between Gardner, his former employer Mathew B. Brady and the group of photographers around them. Improved digital access to city and state records, legal papers and newspaper journalism, alongside traditional archive sources and local histories, accelerates significantly research that can be done into the personnel and organisation of businesses such as Gardner’s. This allows for a more sophisticated understanding of a new economic network built around associational culture, as was the case with Gardner’s Scottish workforce, as well as the position of the apprentice in such businesses. It also reveals how the economic visibility of the photographer as new professional came at the cost of the invisibility of the labour of women, younger working-class men and of African Americans.