The Project, Goals,Phase 1: the Collection, Phase 2: The Site
In
1922, Frank Hamilton Taylor donated 243 images of
The possibilities that this
collection offers in terms of research about
The
first phase of this project entailed sorting through the entire Philadelphiana
collection (save categories in which the likelihood of finding Frank H. Taylor
photographs is extremely small e.g. civil war, mummers). After (hopefully)
all of the images were extracted, each was recorded with as much information
as possible and given a Unique Identifier number.The majority of the information
in the final list comes from the images, though some additional information
was gained from the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
project and the Philadelphia Office Building Directory of 1899 and King's
publication.I should like to do more research on the individual photographs,however
time does not permit me to do so. The records are as follows:
Name:Usually
the title written on the back of the image. All of names were given by a former
curator at the Free Library. These names all pertain to the subject of the
photographs such as: RR Sooy's Chop House.There are several occasions where
it is clear that the name given to the photograph is not the primary subject
of the image. In these cases,I have omitted a name or substituted the address
as the title. However all of these titles still exist in pencil on the back
of the images should someone want to use them.
Location:Often
times the full location of the image was written on the back, sometimes only
an intersection was given, sometimes only a street number and sometimes no
address at all. I have tried to find as many addresses as possible in the
resources listed above.
Architect:Jeff Cohen was kind enough to sit with me and help identify many of
the architects for a majority of the buildings.Other architects have been
found by research on the building in the resources listed above.
Building Type: I based my judgment for the categorization
of the buildings on the name of the building and its general appearance.Ê
Due to the little information given about the buildings, there may
be some errors in classification.For example, I am sure that many of the buildings
were primarily manufacturing,Ê though they appear to be office buildings.In
addition, many of the buildings had several functions, in these cases I tried
to choose the most prominent function based on the exterior of the building
or its name.
Built:The
date of the buildings construction, found on the buildingâs facade.
Appears In: This denotes where images of the building can be found. I discovered
that many of the actual images appeared in the Philadelphia Office Building
Directory of 1899, and noted the page.Ê The
poor state of the OBD made it impossible to continue looking for images. All
of the references to Kingâs Views and publications other than the OBD were
created by a former curator at the Print and Pictures Department of the Philadelphia
Free Library.
Notes:This
denotes the rare occasion when
U. Identifier #: These numbers were arbitrarily given to the images.
*I regret not
differentiating in the table what information was supplemented by what source
(e.g. Jeff Cohen or the PAB) and the actual data written on the back of the
image.
The
first classification was Building Type. I subdivided it into 4 categories
based on the most popular forms of Building Type: Banks,
Hotels, Stores, and Office Buildings. The rest of the entries were put into
a Miscellaneous page, where building type is the
first column of the chart. The second subdivision was based on location following
the traditional layout of Center city (Vine to South, River to River) and
dividing it along Broad and Market streets. Each quarter of Center city (NE, NW, SE,
SW), buildings located Outside Center
City and the buildings whose Addresses are still
Unknown were given their own page. The final subdivision was the Browse
by Architect category. Though the majority of architects are not known,
I included all entries on this page to highlight all of the missing data.
Hopefully, more information about these buildings will slowly surface. These
three main subdivisions are all accessible from the main page. A list of all
of the buildings by Unique Identifier and picture credits can be found on
the front page by clicking on Collection and Credits.
For most of the lists, I included anchors, so that the user can skip to specific
parts of the document depending on their search criteria.
The Site also offers information about Frank H. Taylor, a section for Feedback and this page.Ê The biography of Frank H. Taylor aims to give a context for the collection, beyond the use of the images in commercial publications. The Feedback page is important for two reasons a) constructive criticism is always welcome and b) so that individuals can forward any information that may be missing.
The
design of this site hinges on easy navigation. At the top of each page is
a large banner that is shared by every page of the document unifying the whole
site, while also informing the user where he or she is. At the bottom of every
page are links to the main page and to one step up in browsing. After hearing
that the Print and Pictures Department has chosen to use the Frank H. Taylor
Collection as part of its Digitization project, I decided to only scan several
images to use in this site, choosing ones that I thought were representative
of the collection. This was a very difficult decision, as there are dozens
of images that are remarkable. In the end decided on a few images, that I
thought would look good on this website.
The
main page is set up to both act as a site map and introduce the user to the collection.
I have tried to make function match form to increase the legibility of the
siteâs ãgatewayä and the site itself. The focus of the page is the short
description of the site flanked on the left by the three main browsing options,
two of which use images to concretize their function. On the right hand side
there is a link to a Frank H. Taylor biography supplemented with one of his
drawings atop a plain box filled with links to the administrative parts of the
site. Acting as a background for the main page is a photograph from the
collection, acting as a subtle indication about the nature of the images. The
rest of the pages are designed first and foremost with the browsing of the
lists in mind.
