About This Collection
James Lawrence Dillon (1859-1942) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants James and Annie Eleanor Dillon. His mother died when he was 4, and his father when he was 11. In 1886, James married Mary Beck Fisher. They had two children, Florence Hazel Dillon Jacoby (1887-1986) and Theodore Fisher “Jack” Dillon (1890-1979). James Dillon was proprietor of a successful photography business in Philadelphia, James L. Dillon & Co., Inc, Photographers, located at 1017 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Among other subjects, Dillon’s photography company documented many architectural projects in and around Philadelphia including churches, private residences, banks, government buildings, cultural institutions, commercial enterprises, factories, and area hospitals. The business continued after his death (April 6, 1942) at least into the 1960s. This lantern slide collection of approximately 277 images, mostly executed in the 1920s, captures another, more artistic side of Dillon’s photography. Images in this collection include many plant portraits, fruit and flower studies, garden images, friends and family in gardens, and Philadelphia views such as Logan Square, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon. The collection also contains views of the William Hinckle Smith garden in Bryn Mawr, the Widener estate Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Views of national parks in the United States and Canada and images of the Bermuda Islands are also represented. Many of the lantern slides were produced using the Autochrome Lumière color photography process, giving the carefully composed images a luminous beauty and dream-like quality. The lantern slide collection was given to PHS McLean Library & Archives by Dillon family descendant Ginger Hankins in 2021. This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant.
