George Grantham Bain
Quick Facts
Biography
George Grantham Bain (January 7, 1865 – April 20, 1944) was a New York City photographer. He was known as "the father of foreign photographic news".
Biography
He was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 7, 1865 to George Bain and Clara Mather. His family moved from Chicago to St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Saint Louis University as an undergraduate where he studied chemistry. He then attained a law degree from the same institution.
After graduation, he became a reporter at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The following year he moved to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he became the Washington, DC correspondent.
He worked for United Press before he started the Bain News Service in 1898.
He died on April 20, 1944 in Manhattan.
George Grantham Bain Collection
Most of the images are originals of events in New York City, but he also copied existing images of worldwide events for distribution to newspapers.
Most of his photographs date from the 1900s to about 1930 but some images date from the 1860s and some are from the 1930s. His 40,000 glass negatives are with the Library of Congress in the Prints and Photographs Division. Most are scanned and are available online. There are no known restrictions on the photographs in the George Grantham Bain Collection. Some of his most important images were marked with a copyright notice to prevent unauthorized distribution.