Alvan S. Harper

Alvan S. Harper (1847–1911) was an American photographer who was active in Tallahassee, Florida.

Harper was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1847. He worked as a photographer in Philadelphia before moving to Tallahassee, Florida.^[1] The book of his photographs published in 1986 was reviewed in the Southern Historian.^[2] In 2017 a "Trolley ride through Alvan S. Harper's Tallassee" was held.^[3] Exhibition of a selection of his photographs of African Americans was held at the Wentworth Museum (now the Pensacola Museum of History) in Pensacola 2016.^[4]

He had a studio and posed portraits with backdrops, cabinet photos, as well as photographs of residences, buildings, farming, hunting, railway activity, political leaders, and many local people. The Florida State Archives have a collection of his work. The University of Florida published an album of his work including a short biography, an explanation of the rediscovery of a set of his glass plates, notations on the images, as well as media accounts of his history and photos.^[5] A travelling exhibition of select photographs he took of African Americans has been made into a travelling exhibition by the Museum of Florida.^[6]

Harper produced a series of portraits of Florida's early Supreme Court Justices. He based them on earlier images, where he could find them, or photographs he took himself. He retouched the works with charcoal. They were later used to make oil paintings and lost. Some were later rediscovered while many remain missing.^[7]

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  Nellie Franklin holding a parasol
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  "Hawkins Ball's Bar", server
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  Alvan Harper's House
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  Laurie A. Perkins with a penny-farthing bicycle
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  Florida State Capitol
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  Dog posed on table
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  Three boys hauling sugarcane to the mill
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  Winthrop children Francis B. Winthrop and Guy Winthrop on horseback with attendants
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  Porch scene
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  Children
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  Costumed performers in the show Mikado at Gallie's Hall, April 13, 1887
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  Seated man
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  Girl holding a fan behind a wooden gate
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  Rosebud Denham in embossed dress
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  Boiling cane syrup