(PHOTOGRAPHY.) Photograph of a porter at the Hotel Palomares in California. Silver print, 6½ x 4½ inches, mounted on plain stiff paper; light foxing to mount. [Pomona, CA], circa 1890
The sitter's badge reads "Hotel Palomares, Porter"; the hotel was opened in Pomona, CA in 1885. He holds a book with an elaborate publisher's gilt cloth binding, "Patriarchs and Prophets" by Ellen Gould White, first published in 1887. The author was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and we suspect this porter was also a member.
A cyanotype print of this same image was donated in 2016 to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and was published on page 54 in the 2019 book "Double Exposure: Pictures with a Purpose, Early Photographs from the National Museum of African American History and Culture."
