Nellie Stockbridge

Nellie Stockbridge
Born	Nellie Jane Stockbridge 1868 (1868) United States
Died	1965 (aged 96–97) Wallace, Idaho, United States
Known for	Photography

Nellie Stockbridge (1868 – May 22, 1965) was an American photographer known for documenting life in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District in Idaho. Over a career spanning more than 60 years, her work captured key aspects of the region’s social, cultural, and industrial history.

Biography

Stockbridge was born in 1868 in the United States, possibly in Illinois. In 1898, she joined Thomas N. Barnard, a photographer in Wallace, Idaho, to assist with photographic retouching. She moved to Wallace in 1899 and became an essential member of Barnard’s studio.

By 1907, Stockbridge acquired partial ownership of the business. When Barnard was elected mayor of Wallace, she took over the studio's daily operations, eventually becoming its sole owner. Despite natural disasters such as fires and floods, Stockbridge continued her work, documenting significant aspects of life in Wallace until her death in 1965.

Career

Stockbridge’s photography focused on the lives of Wallace residents, mining operations, and major events in the region. Her work includes:

• Portraiture – Stockbridge created studio portraits of miners, businesspeople, families, and individuals in Wallace, reflecting the diversity and character of the community, all meticulously matched with details from her extensive journal entries for each image.
• Mining industry – She extensively photographed mining operations, documenting underground work, equipment, labor strikes, and mining disasters. Her images provide valuable insight into the challenges and dangers faced by miners.
• Social and cultural life – Stockbridge’s work also includes photographs of parades, social events, and town milestones, creating a rich visual narrative of the community.

Panoramic photography and rare images

Stockbridge was one of the few women photographers of her time to produce detailed panoramic photographs, capturing silver mining camps, industrial sites, and mountain towns. Her work often required extraordinary physical effort, as she carried her camera and tripod into underground mines and climbed steep mountains to obtain the best vantage points. These panoramic images provide a rare visual record of the growth and transformation of Idaho’s mining communities.

Survival of her collection

Stockbridge’s collection of over 200,000 glass plate and nitrocellulose negatives is notable for its survival, as early photographic negatives were highly flammable and often lost in fires. The Great Fire of 1910, which destroyed much of Wallace, did not burn the Barnard-Stockbridge studio, allowing her extensive photographic archive to be preserved. Many of her photographs were originally printed in small sizes for newspaper articles. A growing number have since been reprinted into much larger 4-foot by 6-foot images, revealing significant new details.

Historic Wallace Photo Museum

The Historic Wallace Photo Museum, located in Wallace, Idaho, began operation in 2019 as the Barnard-Stockbridge Wallace Extension. With the growth of the collection, including additional relevant photographs, the name was changed in 2024 to "The Historic Wallace Photo Museum." The museum makes the Barnard-Stockbridge Collection accessible to tourists, descendants, and historians through large-format image displays and the newly introduced “talking pictures,” which use oral narratives to expand the stories behind the images.

External links

• Barnard Stockbridge Collection (University of Idaho)
• Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection (Historical photographs)
• The Great 1910 Fire (USDA Forest Service)
• Silver Lining: The Early Days of Idaho's Silver Valley (PBS Documentary)