SC Photo 0044 Guatemalan Earthquake Photograph Album

Emilio (Emil) Herbruger (1808-1894) was a German daguerreotypist, ambrotypist, and photographer who worked in Latin America. Germany who later worked in several Latin American countries. He is considered the first commercial photographer in Guatemala where he established a gallery around 1846. His photographs often depict local people, nature, and city scenes.

Edward (Eduardo) James Kildare (1849-1901) was an American photographer. In the early 1880s he moved to Guatemala where he worked for the German-born Emilio (Emil) Herbruger at Fotografia Imperial. Clara Kildare was killed during the 1902 earthquake noted in this collection.

Alberto G. Valdeavellano (1861-1926), born in Guatemala City was an apprentice in the Emilio (Emil) Herbruger’s studio. It is likely that he was the photographer of the Quetzaltenango earthquake in 1902.

A collection of 52 topographic views, portraits of Guatemalans and ruins from earthquakes as albumen prints from wet collodion plate negatives are attributed to Edward James Kildare, 1897 in the Bodleian Libraries’ Michael and Jane Wilson collection of Nineteenth century photographs. Based on the views of Lehigh’s collection, its is likely that these two collections are very similar.