The Garrett-Cremer Collection

Ellwood Garrett (1815-1910) was one of Wilmington, Delaware's earliest photographers. The son of abolitionist Thomas Garrett, he learned the daguerreotype method from Philadelphia's Samuel Broadbent in about 1850. Broadbent himself became business partners with Garrett's sister, Sally Hewes, before her untimely death in 1853.

Although Ellwood turned over his studio to his sons in 1870, he remained an active hobbyist photographer. He also worked as treasurer and librarian for the Delaware Historical Society, helped found a fire insurance company in the city, and promoted education for African Americans in Delaware. Yet most of the focus has remained on Ellwood's more famous father--when Ellwood died in 1915, his obituary in the Wilmington News-Journal talked mainly about his advanced age and his father's abolitionist work, not his role in bringing photography to the city.

A daguerreotype of Ellwood Garrett and his family. The black and white image depicts an adult man and woman, and seven children of various ages surrounding them. An intricately carved golden border surrounds the image.

This enormous daguerreotype (about ten inches by six inches!) depicts Ellwood, his wife Catherine, and seven of their children. The image most likely dates to around 1857. Image courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.

In 2020, the Delaware Historical Society obtained a cache of materials from Ellwood, his daughter Emily, his granddaughter Agnes, as well as from Agnes's husband, fellow photographer Harry Richardson Cremer. But the COVID-19 pandemic and the demands of other projects delayed processing the collection until I worked as a Graduate Assistant at DHS. 

When I first examined the materials in November 2022, my initial task lay in figuring out the families' histories. Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, glass plate negatives, correspondence, documents, locks of hair, and various pieces of ephemera lay scattered across different auction lots, which came to DHS packed in plastic totes and cardboard boxes. And in the absence of any other kind of original order, I had to rely on that structure for first steps.

Fortunately for me, the Garretts were a Quaker family, and kept fairly detailed genealogical records. Using that information, plus newspaper articles, online resources, and DHS's other genealogical records, I put together a family tree of this branch of the Garrett family:

Garrett family tree.pdf

Because DHS had received these items at auction, the lots did not always contain material that related to Delaware. So after determining the family tree, I set out to separate what items we wanted to keep, what we could donate, and what we'd likely have to weed.

To keep the lot structure, I used painter's tape to divide the table in a scheme I affectionately called the "CSI Method."

An assortment of artifacts and photographs, wrapped in foam and bubble wrap, and placed in boxes. Yellow sticky notes identify the contents of each.

The auction lots came packaged in boxes and foam envelopes, which then sat in larger containers like these apple trays. I used sticky notes to describe each lot's content ahead of the weeding process. Photo by Chris Loos.

The interior of a box and lid for "Clark's Spool Cotton," now mostly empty.

Some items, like this box that once held cotton spool, did not match DHS's scope, nor would it likely fit elsewhere. So after photographing and documenting it, we chose to weed it. Photo by Chris Loos.

A table divided into sections by painter's tape. Sections on the left contain boxes with artifacts wrapped in foam, while sections on the right contain manila folders.

The "CSI Method" let me keep items in their original lots while I separated and arranged them. I could then divide Delaware materials from non-Delaware ones. Photo by Chris Loos.

Once I had identified what we'd keep, we had to properly store it. At a smaller institution like DHS, specialty boxes are often prohibitively expensive. So I opted create custom enclosures for the cased images and glass plate negatives. That meant arts and crafts time!

Drawing on guides from the internet, I cut out pieces of archival cardstock and created four-flap enclosures for the glass negatives. For the cased daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, I took a flat artifact tray with nested boxes and designed padding and handles that could hold each item. The resulting container could safely hold these important images, but also made it easy to share and display them.

The set-up for creating four-flap enclosures. A green cutting board rests on a table, atop which sit two pieces of cardstock (one with double-sided tape), an L-ruler, a pencil, an eraser, and a bone folder.

The setup for creating four-flap enclosures for glass negatives. At first, I used archival double-sided tape on two pieces of cardstock. But I eventually moved to cutting one large, cross-shaped piece. Photo by Chris Loos.

A completed enclosure for a cased image sits atop a green cutting board. The image sits in the middle, wrapped in tissue paper and protected with cardstock. Foam cushions fill up the rest of the box on the left and right.

I reused some of the auction house's packing material to save on cost (and reduce waste!), but I wrapped them in archival tissue to create cushions like these. Photo by Chris Loos.

A cased daguerreotype, tied with cotton tape, rests in its nested box. The tag above it reads: "GC.3.E-1: Daguerreotype of a Young Boy, Perhaps Warren G., ca. 1850s"

Cased daguerreotypes and ambrotypes rested gently in these nested boxes, which included tags with the item's ID number and a description. I used cotton tape to keep cases with damaged hinges closed. Photo by Chris Loos.

A large, roughly square cardboard box containing several smaller boxes inside it. Those boxes each contain padding and a single cased image. A tag above each item assigns it a unique ID number and a brief description.

The complete box, storing about a dozen photographs. Photo by Chris Loos.

The Garrett-Cremer Collection wasn't the largest I'd worked with at DHS, but it was probably the most complicated. The paper materials proved relatively straightforward, but this collection contained challenges. All the glass plate negatives and cased images needed custom enclosures, which meant several days of measuring, cutting, taping, and tying.


But it was all worth it. I fell down a rabbit-hole of research while investigating the Garrett family, uncovering stories that ranged from a missing daguerreotype camera to an accidental killing. The paper documents and locks of hair provided tantalizing glimpses into these peoples' lives, but the photographs offer an entirely different level of insight. 


I'm grateful to have had the honor of processing this collection. It made me feel, for perhaps the first time, like a true archivist.