Work

Goose Creek church interior — an 1860 negative reissued in the 1870s

The interior of St. James Episcopal Church, Goose Creek, on a stereograph.

A prewar negative, printed and sold more than a decade later by a different Charleston firm, with that firm’s name and address on the card. Nothing on the mount says who made the picture.

This is how attributions get lost, and it is why the Library’s note — photographer attribution from another copy in its own collection — is worth as much as the object.

On the attribution

The Library of Congress attributes the photograph to Osborn & Durbec from another copy in its own holdings (LOT 14110-1, no. 48) and dates the printing from the years Teal gives for the Bolles studio.

The repository’s notes

Publication dates based on years that J.A. Bolles operated a studio in Charleston. Source: Teal, Harvey S., Partners with the sun. Photographer attribution from LOT 14110-1, no. 48.

Research notes

Note the initial: this mount reads Jesse A. Bolles, while the Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art write Jesse H. Bolles elsewhere.

The record

Title, as catalogedInterior, Goose Creek church, built 1711
Title used hereGoose Creek church interior — an 1860 negative reissued in the 1870s
Photographerno photographer identified
FirmOsborn & Durbec’s Southern Stereoscopic & Photographic Depot
Published byJ. H. Bolles’s photographic gallery
AttributionAttributed
Date, as catalogedCharleston, S.C. : Jesse A. Bolles, cor. King & Market Streets, [photographed ca. 1860, printed between 1873 and 1877]
PlaceSt. James Episcopal Church, Goose Creek
Processalbumen print on card mount
Formatstereograph
Dimensionsmount 17 x 8 cm
Negative or printprint
CollectionThe Robin G. Stanford Collection
Call numberLOT 14110-11, no. 52 [P&P]
Reproduction numberLC-DIG-stereo-1s04557 (front); LC-DIG-stereo-2s04557 (back)
Inscription on the mountJesse A. Bolles, cor. King & Market Streets
RepositoryLibrary of Congress
Credit lineLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
RightsNo known restrictions on publication
Rights advisory, verbatimNo known restrictions on publication.
Catalog recordhttps://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015651353/
ConfidenceVerified
Last verified2026-08-30

Sources

  • Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/
  • Harvey S. Teal, Partners with the Sun: South Carolina Photographers, 1840–1940 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).