#  Josiah Parsons Cooke (1827-1894) 

 



 ##  

  expand\_more  

 
  

 

   ![Alt Text](/sites/g/files/omnuum11151/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/saltprintsatharvard/files/gorehall_cooke_houghton.jpg?itok=KFYi33uL) 

 

[Gore Hall," Josiah Parsons Cooke, paper negative (calotype process), 1844, Houghton Library, Harvard University](https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:15315185$3i)[View images of JosiahParsons Cooke's salted paper prints and paper negatives.](https://images.hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,Josiah%20Parsons%20Cooke&tab=default_tab&search_scope=default_scope&vid=HVD_IMAGES&mfacet=genre,include,Photographs,1&offset=0)

In 1843, Josiah Parson Cooke entered Harvard College, where he developed an interest in chemistry and the new medium of photography. After learning the recipe for William Henry Fox Talbot’s first negative-to-positive method, Cooke took a series of photographs outside of his dormitory window. The images show a view of Gore Hall, the first building at Harvard designated solely as the college library. Cooke’s original paper negatives still survive in Houghton Library and capture with remarkably clarity the gothic structure with its octagonal towers and buttresses. The efforts of Cooke represent one of the earliest photographic views of Gore Hall or of Harvard by a college student, who, not surprisingly, went on to become a professor of chemistry and mineralogy at his alma mater.