Universal York

The York Fair is rolling around again, with its entertainment, rides, animals, games, races, food and prizes. Take a stroll around the exhibition halls. The fair continues a long tradition of giving out awards for York County’s best. Talented Glenalvin Goodridge was winning prizes for his photography over 150 years ago. His ambrotypes, described below, were exceptional, as can be seen by one of his original ambrotypes in the photo above. The article is from the October 30, 1855 York Gazette.

“Ambrotypes

We had an opportunity, a few days ago, of examining some very fine specimens of AMBROTYPES, which is the name given to a recent and very important improvement of Daguerrean pictures. The Ambrotype is decidedly superior to the Daguerreotype, Crystallotype, or Talbotype. It has the advantage of being without the peculiar glare of Daguerreotypes which renders it necessary that the picture, to be seen, be held in a particular light or at a particular angle. The Ambrotype is like a fine, richly toned steel engraving; and, like such an engraving, presents its lights and shades at any angle of light. The specimens we saw were by Mr. GLENALVIN GOODRIDGE, who is constantly vigilant in seizing and mastering every successive improvement in the wonderful photographic art–to his great credit he is never content to remain a single step in the read of its progress. We consider Goodridge’s ambrotype pictures, with the stereoscopic application, the very perfection of the art–the relief being, in very truth, so life-like, that the beholder finds it difficult to persuade himself that he is looking upon a plain surface.
The Ambrotype is taken upon plate glass, to which another plate of corresponding size is secured with an indestructible cement, by which the picture will retain its original brilliancy for ages–it will not corrode by acids, nor be injured by water or climate.”

Click here for a previous post on another early York photographer.