Alfred A. Hart

Places of work recorded in the authority are United States. Work by Alfred A. Hart is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, Netherlands Photo Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and J. Paul Getty Museum.

• Name — Alfred A. Hart • Born — 1816 • Birthplace — Norwich, Connecticut • Died — 1908 (aged 92) • Place of death — San Leandro, California • Field — photography • Works — stereoscopic photographs of the Transcontinental Railroad

Hart was the official photographer for the Central Pacific Railroad under the patronage of Judge Edwin B. Crocker, one of the Five Associates on the Central Pacific board. Hart documented the building of the western half of the first transcontinental railroad, for which he took 364 historic stereoviews of the railroad construction in the 1860s. Hart specialized in stereo views and had an intuitive understanding of elements that would best showcase the three-dimensional effects of the format: sharp angles, curving tracks, and layered foregrounds and backgrounds brought his scenes to life. When Judge Crocker resigned from the Central Pacific board after a stroke in June 1869, Hart lost his connection with the company; he was replaced by Carleton Watkins, a boyhood friend of Central Pacific vice-president Collis P. Huntington. Hart sold some of his stereoview negatives to Watkins, who later published the CPRR stereoviews in the 1870s under his own name. • Illustration — Alfred Hart's photograph#336 of Palisades (Ten Mile) Canyon and the Humboldt River, during construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.