William Corbit Spruance, 1873-1935, was an electrical engineer, an executive on the board of the DuPont Company, a civic leader in Wilmington, and the photographer behind Hagley's most extraordinary collection of early twentieth century color images of the finest private gardens in Wilmington.
Spruance, an avid amateur photographer and advisory member of the Garden Club of Wilmington, used his 3A Kodak camera to photograph the gardens of other club members, many of whom were among Wilmington's wealthiest residents. His photographs, primarily lantern slides, were frequently presented at club meetings, and Spruance's accompanying lecture notes and captions still exist alongside the slides in Hagley's collections.
Earlier lantern slides were done in black and white, which Spruance then colored by hand. The images produced were sharp and clear, but matching the hand coloring to real life hues proved a challenge - applying too much coloring made the blooms appear more vibrant than they actually were, and, as Spruance notes, if the gelatin film was too hard, it was impossible to "secure the best color effects either as to intensity or variety of the tints." In 1923, Spruance began using Lumiere Autochrome color plates. These plates created true color images by passing light through a film of fine starch granules dyed separately in primary colors before hitting the sensitized photographic film. Exposure time for autochromes was long (often as much as twenty seconds), and Spruance writes in his lecture notes that "only a slight breeze will blur the flowers and foliage."
However, neither the difficulties of hand coloring nor of photographing with autochromes proved a barrier to Spruance. Between 1922 and 1925, he created nearly two hundred color lantern slides, capturing images of more than thirty local gardens. From sweeping views of the landscape at Mr. H. Rodney Sharp's Gibraltar and Mrs. H.F. du Pont's Winterthur, to intimate peeks into the informal gardens of Mr. C.M. Barton and Mrs. W.K. du Pont, Spruance documented some of the most important and impressive gardens in the country, at a time when horticulture as a hobby flourished in popularity and competition between gardeners was fierce. Many of these gardens no longer exist today - Hoopes Reservoir now sits on the site of Mrs. T.C. du Pont's gardens at The Old Mill, and Mrs. A.L. Foster's grounds at Virieaux have been replaced by residential housing - so, for some, Spruance's work exists as the only visual record of their splendor.
Until now, anyone wishing to catch a glimpse of these extraordinary images of Wilmington's horticultural past would have had to visit Hagley in person, but thanks to the great work of our dedicated volunteers, Spruance's lantern slide collection has been scanned, and is available to view online.
Click here to view the entire W.C. Spruance Collection of Wilmington Garden Slides in Hagley's Digital Archive
Please contact the Hagley Pictorial Collections Department for more information: research@hagley.org or 302-658-2400 ext 276.
For more information about the Hagley Library, visit www.hagley.org/library
Sources
Lidz, Maggie. The Du Ponts, Houses and Gardens in the Brandywine, 1900-1951. New York: Acanthus Press, 2009.
Spruance, W.C., "Hand Colored Lantern Slide lecture notes." W.C. Spruance lantern slide collection, acc. 84.217, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE
Spruance, W.C., "Lumiere Autochrome Lantern Slide lecture notes." W.C. Spruance lantern slide collection, acc. 84.217, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE
1 comments:
Thank you for putting this collection on line. The photographs are charming.
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