PBA Galleries

June 23, 1859. 2pp.+ attached 2-pg. letter from his wife, Marion. To relatives: 

Just 22 years old when he wrote this letter, Roberts did not remain a photographer, but looked for more stable work while raising three children. After returning from service in the Civil War, the 1880 census found him managing a hotel in Jackson, Pennsylvania. The Ambrotype process had been introduced just a few years before, but after enjoying a brief popularity, it would give way to the Civil War tintype. Roberts possibly learned the Ambrotype trade from Washington G. Smith, another young photographer who partnered with other Daugerreans in the small town until at the start of the war he became sole proprietor of Otsego’s best known Photograph Gallery.

"... I have the Ambrotype business and I like the business first rate and I get along finely in learning, and I flatter myself that I can now put up a better picture than most of the common artists that are now traveling and that are said to be great artists, I have to pay $20 dollars in cash for learning the art… a large price…but it is a great satisfaction to know that I am learning of the best artists in the Country. I have to board myself and I have a horse and cutter and go to Cooperstown and back every day…five miles…I am learning to take three or four kinds of pictures, these that we send you today are taken on oil cloth, they can also be taken on patent leather prepared paper, and several other substances, they are a very convenient picture for sending in letters and they will last a long time if they are not handled too much…the price for taking pictures on leather & oil cloth etc. is 50 cts..."