Davidson Meets Nutting……or Does Nutting Meet Davidson??

Blog Post #2

There are a variety of discussions as to how and when they met, so let me set the story straight!

The Golden Age of the hand-colored photography movement peaked in our country between 1900-1930. Collectively, Nutting and Davidson became responsible for the lion’s share of this art form.

But where did they meet? In a Church.

It’s the fall of 1900. The Davidson family attends church on Sundays at the Union Congregational Church in Providence, RI. David had been very involved in the church’s youth group activities. It was at one of these socials that the minister of the church approached David with a job opportunity. The minister of the church just happened to be Wallace Nutting.

Rev. Nutting was looking for someone to assist him at his home photography studio. David had just started his college courses at Brown University and the Nutting home was neighboring Roger Williams Park. In spite of the fact that the trip every day from Brown University to Roger Williams Park was more than an hour each way by trolly car, David gladly accepted the invitation at the wage of $0.25 an hour.

We believe this is a picture that Davidson took of the interior of the Union Congregational Church in Providence RI. Unfortunately, the signed, untitled photo is glued to a piece of cardboard so I cannot access the back of the photo, which could give me some information or an index number. Our assumption is that this is not a copyrighted photo and most likely one of a kind.