Joseph Boggs Beale Collection

Joseph Boggs Beale (1841-1926) was born in Philadelphia and studied writing and drawing. In 1862, he earned the position of Professor of Drawing and Writing at Central High School, his alma mater, over Thomas Eakins. Originally an oil painter, he transitioned to illustration after making field sketches during the Civil War. His first published drawing, of a baseball game in Harper’s Weekly, is part of this collection.

Beale began working as an illustrator for Caspar W. Briggs’s lantern slide company in about 1881. His work made him the most accomplished artist of lantern slides, illustrating stories, poems, songs, and current and historical events. Thanks to Beale’s illustrations, Briggs’s lantern slide company became one of the world’s largest and most innovative. Beale worked with Briggs until motion pictures became popular and undermined the lantern slide industry in the early twentieth century. Over the course of his career, from 1881 until about 1920, Beale produced some 2073 images in 258 sets.