A collection of over 1,000 glass negatives and about 200 celluloid negatives, taken between 1910 and 1925, by photographers George Andrew Fowler, Louis Beegle, and Blackwell & DiCorsi, who shared the same studio at 520 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, at different periods of time. The images depict a variety of subjects, including an automobile dealership’s road trip advertising campaigns, manufacturing plants, oil drilling, land development sites and aviation, among others. Along with his own work, George Andrew Fowler kept the negatives Beegle, Blackwell & Di Corsi left behind, and decades later his grandson, Edward Fowler Tuttle, inherited the entire collection and donated it to the LAPL Photo Collection. Also in the collection, an album entitled Picture Sales Reports, containing biographical information on George Andrew Fowler and photographic prints taken in Big Bear lake and San Bernadino County.

George Andrew Fowler, son of Samuel Fowler (whose memoir is located in UCLA’s Dept. of Special Collections) was a pioneer farmer in Tulare County. He moved to New York to become an artist, then returned to California around 1920 where he became a professional photographer. He acquired a photography shop and developing laboratory formerly belonging to Louis F. Beegle and with it, the glass plates and celluloid negatives belonging to Beegle and the other photographers who occupied the shop prior to him. This accumulation of negatives accounts for the various subjects and styles of the photography, and the far-flung locations they visited on assignments. After Mr. Fowler closed his shop, all of these plates were stored in a garage in the Fowler home in South Pasadena. It wasn’t until the 1960s, when the house was sold, that the collection was discovered by daughter Helen Tuttle, who then passed them on to the donor, her son, Edward Fowler Tuttle.

1,106 Glass and celluloid negatives

The collection is stored on-site at the Central Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. It is closed for research. Photograph collections may be browsed, digitally, via the Los Angeles Public Library website at https://tessa.lapl.org