The Robert W. Lisle Collection is an artificially-amassed collection of image capture, developing and exhibition equipment as well as still- and moving-image materials. The collection spans over 150 years and focuses on the history of image capture in the United States from the mid 19th century to the early 21st.
The collection is arranged in the following four series:
Series 1. Eras of Image Capture This series contains equipment pertaining to the history of image capture. It contains prephotographic equipment like the magic lantern and a very early glass slide projector. It also contains a daguerreotype camera, motion picture cameras and projectors as well as esoterica like a head brace, used for keeping subjects still long enough for a daguerreotype exposure.
Series 2. Technological Innovators This series contains image capture equipment and materials exemplifying the profound effect on photography by the Kodak and Polaroid companies. This includes materials like cameras, advertisements and instruction manuals.
Series 3. Types of Photography This series features example of still image capture like daguerreotypes and tintypes. It also contains digital image capture devices from the early 21st century from a digital still camera to an iMac computer from the early 2000s.
Series 4. Other Photographic Materials This series contains darkroom equipment like enlargers, images of Niagara Falls (suitable for comparison of the different 19th and 20th century photochemical photographic processes) and photography-themed advertising posters.
The Robert W. Lisle collection touches on many important moments in the history of image capture with an emphasis on the changing technological realities of the medium.
This collection was purchased by Hampshire College in 2004. An appraisal of the monetary value of this collection was done by the Baltimore Book Company of Baltimore, MD in 2003 prior to the collection's purchase. There is no scheduled destruction for this collection.
No further accruals are expected.
The Archives has a copy of the exhibition catalog (entitled Photography Remembered: A Selective View From The Robert W. Lisle Collection) from the 1990 exhibition of these materials at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA. The accession number for this book is A.2012.2013.008.
Selections from the Lisle collection have been put into an online exhibit by the Hampshire Library that can be found
Due to the fragile nature of many of the materials in it, working with this collection will require the assistance and supervision of the Archivist.
This collection is open for research.
This collection of materials was collected by Robert W. Lisle over 20 years. The collection was exhibited in 1990 by the Chrysler Museum, who published a catalog of the exhibit called Photography Remembered: A Selective View From The Robert W. Lisle Collection. Hampshire College purchased the collection in 2006.