About the Collection
The Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs digital collection contains a wide range of early Texas photography. The digitized images are from the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection, which contains approximately 4,200 photographs, ca. 1846-1945. The images are an overview of Texas photographers, photography, and history that spans a century.
The Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection represents over 30 years of collecting, assembled by Jones from the 1970s to 2008. The Jones collection is one of the most comprehensive and valuable Texas-related photography collections. It documents all aspects of Texas photography, including the various types practiced from its earliest introduction to the state: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, stereographs and paper print photographs in various formats. The online and physical collections depict a large array of subjects and styles, and examples by numerous photographers, both professional and itinerant, who documented Texas, the contiguous states, and Mexico.
The digital collection includes cartes-de-visite, cabinet cards, oversized photos, stereographs, and more. The subjects of the photos include Confederate and Union soldiers and officers in the Civil War; Mexicans, including ranking military officials from the Mexican Revolution; and a wide spectrum of Texan citizens, including African American, indigenous, Hispanic, and Caucasian women, men, and children. The photographs and related information provide a unique glimpse into the social and domestic history, architecture, transportation, ranching, agriculture, commerce, material culture, costume, and urban and rural history of Texas.
Items from the following series in the finding aid are available online.