Charles Henry Davis:

Photographer of Plainfield, New York, and Hoboken

Abstract

Abstract: Charles Henry Davis (1855–1929), a photographer active in both Plainfield and Hoboken, New Jersey, and in New York City, had a nationwide reputation as a portrait photographer during his lifetime but has become an obscure figure today.  This illustrated article details his life and work, including his early years as a telegrapher in Elmira, his early reputation as an innovative photographer in Plainfield where he founded the Plainfield Camera Club, his years in New York at the Davis & Sanford and Davis & Eickemeyer galleries, where he photographed many celebrities, and his last period in Hoboken when he specialized in at-home portraits, exhibited his Pictorialist work internationally, was published regularly in photographic periodicals, and mentored his assistant Dorothea Lange, who became one of America’s best known photographers. The paper concludes with a discussion of how Davis came to be omitted from most history of photography texts.