Charleston photographers, Studio portraitists
Jesse H. Bolles
The Charleston gallery proprietor who employed Alma Pelot, sent him to Fort Sumter on 15 April 1861, and advertised the resulting views in the city’s newspapers. His gallery stood at No. 331 King Street; institutions credit him jointly with Pelot for the earliest photographs of the war at Charleston.
Bolles appears in the record chiefly as an employer, a publisher and an advertiser. His dates are still not established here. His address now is: Frederick Ford’s census of Charleston for 1861 lists Jesse H. Bolles as the occupant of No. 331 King Street, on the west side of the street in Ward 4, in a house held by the trustee of Anna Drake’s estate — and gives his own house as No. 48 St. Philip Street, under the fuller name Jesse Henry Bolles.
He was still, or again, in business in the 1870s: a stereograph in the Library of Congress carries the imprint “Jesse A. Bolles, cor. King & Market Streets”, and the Library dates the printing between 1873 and 1877 on the strength of Harvey Teal’s account of the studio. The negative under that print is an Osborn & Durbec view of about 1860 — a good illustration of how thoroughly Charleston negatives were traded, reprinted and reissued after the war.
Note the initial. The Library of Congress and the Metropolitan Museum of Art both give Jesse H. Bolles; the 1870s mount reads Jesse A. Bolles. Both forms are recorded here and neither is silently corrected.
The Charleston connection
The gallery’s claim on the history is a single week in April 1861. Pelot, Bolles’s operator, made the first photographs of Fort Sumter after the surrender; Bolles put them on sale.
War service and standing
None recorded.
Attribution
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Charleston Museum attribute the April 1861 Fort Sumter photographs to Pelot and Bolles together. The Library of Congress credits Pelot as photographer and describes Bolles as the man he was assistant to. Both readings are shown on this site, and the language of each institution is preserved as it stands.
Career
- 1861Listed in Ford’s census of Charleston at No. 331 King Street, and living at No. 48 St. Philip Street. Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, 1861
- 15 April 1861His operator Alma Pelot photographs Fort Sumter. Civil War Day by Day, UNC-Chapel Hill
- April 1861Advertises the Fort Sumter views in the Charleston press. Civil War Day by Day, UNC-Chapel Hill
- 1873–1877A studio at the corner of King and Market streets, imprinted Jesse A. Bolles. Library of Congress Teal, Partners with the Sun
Do not confuse with
- John Rogers Bolles / other Bolles families — No relationship is claimed or implied here to any other Bolles.
Representative works
- The Evacuation of Fort Sumter, April 1861April 1861 · Alma A. Pelot, Jesse H. BollesAttributedThe Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Fort Sumter, the terreplein of the gorge, 15 April 1861 (MK 3220)April 15, 1861 · Alma A. Pelot, Jesse H. BollesAttributedThe Charleston Museum
- Fort Sumter, three men beside a gun, 15 April 1861 (MK 3636)April 15,1861 · Alma A. Pelot, Jesse H. BollesAttributedThe Charleston Museum
Working locations
- Jesse H. Bolles, No. 331 King Street331 King Street · 1861–Located to the block or named intersection
- Jesse Henry Bolles's house, No. 48 St. Philip Street48 St. Philip Street · 1861–Located to not established
- Jesse A. Bolles, cor. King & Market Streetscor. King & Market Streets · 1873–1877Located to the block or named intersection
Where the work is
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art Joint attribution with Pelot, Gilman Collection.
- The Charleston Museum Joint attribution with Pelot, MK 3220, MK 3636.
- Library of Congress Named in the creator note to PH - Pelot, no. 1, and on the mount of LOT 14110-11, no. 52.
See also
Statement by statement
Every material claim on this page, with its standing and its source. A statement the record does not support is shown as unavailable rather than filled in.
- VerifiedEmployed Alma Pelot, who photographed Fort Sumter on 15 April 1861, and advertised the views later that month.Civil War Day by Day, UNC-Chapel Hill Library of Congress Zeller, The Blue and Gray in Black and White
- VerifiedOperated a studio at the corner of King and Market streets between 1873 and 1877.Library of Congress Teal, Partners with the Sun
- VerifiedHis gallery stood at No. 331 King Street, west side, Ward 4, in 1861, and he lived at No. 48 St. Philip Street.Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, 1861
- VerifiedHis name in full was Jesse Henry Bolles.Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, 1861
- Information unavailableBirth and death dates.no source
Sources
- Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/
- Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
- Photograph Collection, The Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina. https://www.charlestonmuseum.org/research/
- “17 April 1861: Two stereo views of Fort Sumter,” Civil War Day by Day, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 17 April 2011, with a correction posted in the comments by Bob Zeller. Item: folder 222(b), Miscellaneous Pictures, #4090. https://web.lib.unc.edu/civilwar/index.php/2011/04/17/17-april-1861-two-stereo-views-of-fort-sumter/
- Harvey S. Teal, Partners with the Sun: South Carolina Photographers, 1840–1940 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).
- Bob Zeller, The Blue and Gray in Black and White: A History of Civil War Photography (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005).