Photographs of Students in the Printing Shop, Tuskegee Institute

In the Library of Congress there are two images dating from about 1900 to 1910, showing students in the printing shop at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama (now Tuskegee University)  The existence of all the belt drives on the equipment in the first photograph suggests that the shop could have been powered by steam, or if it was powered by electricity by this date they might have been using an electric motor to power equipment that previously had been powered by a steam engine. Both of these images are exceptional for their recording of students working in a printing shop at this date.

The Library of Congress attributes the photograph of students hand-setting type to Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952), and because of stylistic similarities it might be reasonable to attribute the photograph of students printing to her as well. The image that the Library of Congress reproduces was printed from a glass plate negative. The image of students printing was also printed from an original glass plate negative. That image is from the Bain News Service photograph collection, which is part of the George Grantham Bain Collection in the Library of Congress.