House photo albums

The Caroline Simpson Library collects historical images of domestic buildings – both exteriors and interiors – and their gardens. Some of the historical images are contained in photograph albums depicting private homes in NSW mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some volumes are in published form and others consist of photographs pasted into an album.

Some of the albums feature just one home, while others are a compendium of several domestic dwellings. Among the printed albums, a highlight is Our beautiful homes, N.S.W., published in two volumes around 1905. Each volume includes multiple exterior and interior shots of 30 different homes. There was a market for such publications as before the emergence of popular pictorial magazines in Australia such as The Home and The Australian Home Beautiful after World War I, there were few readily available means to see photographs of Australian domestic life, architecture and furnishings.

Albums that include physical photographic prints might have been compiled by individuals or families who were houseproud or wanted to keep a record of a property. Those that feature multiple properties may have been commissioned by real estate agents or architects.

Based on the number of photo albums that survive from the early 20th century, there appears to have been a particular fashion at the time for wealthier homeowners to have their homes professionally photographed. In 1913, the Kerry & Co photographic studio placed an advertisement in Building magazine aimed at ‘architects, builders, engineers, property owners’ and stating: ‘we are at your service to photograph exteriors and interiors of buildings and residences …’ In the same year, Crown Studios claimed that they would ‘send [a] photographer to any address for commercial, interior or exterior photographs’. Today these albums provide valuable visual material demonstrating how Australians in the past built, furnished and lived in their homes.