ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation / Thesis: “LIVING ON PAPER ...

eproductions. A rival company, however, was the first to invent and patent such a
process, and Photochrome could only devise an inferior color process of their own.
Stieglitz’s company was able to garner a few clients, but had difficulty in getting them to
pay their bills. 58
Stieglitz’s perfectionism was a liability as he demanded the highest
quality work whether it made profits or not. He left his partnership at the company in
1895, although he remained associated with them informally. 59 Stieglitz, who had long
lived on a stipend from his father, would continue to do so rather than seeking another
“job.” His father had always had to prop up his son’s businesses, which only lost money,
so the new situation would actually save Edward Stieglitz money. 60
Stieglitz’s experiences in the photographic reproduction business would seem to
have been of no value to his artistic enterprise, yet I see his time at Photochrome as
important in bringing him into contact with graphic art technology and culture. The late
nineteenth century was a time of keen competition and swift changes in the reproduction
of images. The publication of illustrated books and periodicals boomed, promising
profits to whoever could reproduce illustrations the most efficiently. Wood engraving,
lithography, and steel engraving had dominated the printing of illustrations and other
reproductions of art for most of the nineteenth century. Decades passed after the
invention of photography before accurate and efficient processes of photographic
reproduction were invented. This resulted in the irony that in the eighteen-sixties and
eighteen-seventies photographs were still reproduced in magazines by means of
handmade wood engravings whose relief blocks could be printed along with relief metal
type. Financial considerations, including a price war among illustrated magazines in the
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