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H.L. (Harry L.) Bradley

Bradley, Harry L.

The Bradley family served as photographers for Mount Desert Island, Maine beginning in 1867. Bryant Bradley established the business and built an impressive three-story office building on Main Street to house his studio in 1879. The entire first floor was dedicated to his photography business. He shot, developed, and printed all sizes of photograph on site.

In 1887, Bradley sold the business and went into real estate and commerce. Four years later, he returned to photography, opening a new studio on Cottage Street. His son, Harry L. Bradley, joined the family business as a partner in 1895 when he was only 20 years old. Bryant Bradley passed away soon after, but the studio stayed open under Harry Bradley’s direction until his death in 1940.

The studio’s stamp appears on the back of a photograph in the Dumbarton Oaks Garden Archive. Probably Beatrix Farrand, a part-time resident of Bar Harbor, hired Harry Bradley to photograph or develop negatives of the gardens. This would have taken place between 1922, when Farrand began work at Dumbarton Oaks, and 1940 when Bradley died and the business closed.

 

References:

1930 United States Census (Population Schedule), Bar Harbor Town, Hancock County, Maine; p. 13A, Line 8, Harry L. Bradley household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com, accessed August 4, 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 832.

Shettleworth, Earle G. “Bryant Bradley’s Bar Harbor: the Work of a Pioneer Mount Desert Photographer.” Bar Harbor Historical Society Newsletter. August, 2006.