Coale photograph collection

George Buchanan Coale (1819-1887), an amateur photographer, pursued a life-long career as an insurance executive in Baltimore, working with the Merchants Mutual Marine Insurance Company. His position allowed him to pursue his avocation even while at the desk; he once boasted that "I can . . . let my negatives print themselves in my office window while I am attending to my business". In his leisure time, Coale wandered over the country lanes surrounding Baltimore with camera, in pursuit of the perfect picture.

Sometime around Fall of 1857, Coale traveled Falls Road from the northern city limit (North Avenue) out towards the Ruxton area photographing buildings, mills, and outcroppings with his lens. In Coale's words, "Landscape, Architecture and similar subject (were) chosen for their exercise of skill," resulting in "views of marvellous [sic] accuracy, painted by Nature herself". Coale also travelled and photographed west from Baltimore along the Windsor Mill Road.

Coale's photographic experience prompted him to write an instructional book, A Manual of Photography: Adapted to Amateur Practice, Whipple's Albumen Process, appearing in 1858 and purporting to be the first guide for amateur photographers published in the United States. Whipple's albumen process produced salted paper photographic prints from albumen glass negatives (sometimes also referred to as crystalotypes) and was patented by Boston daguerreotypist John Whipple in 1850.

Coale also joined the New York-based Amateur Photographic Exchange Club, founded in November 1861. These camera enthusiasts, drawn mostly from northern east-coast cities, exchanged copies of their work with fellow members at regular intervals. By 1863, Coale's photographic activity seems to have ebbed. That summer a friend replying to Coale's earlier leter remarked, "I am sorry to learn you have to suspend your doings . . . with your enthusiastic temperament the weaning must be difficult". Possibly the movements of the Confederate Army throughout Maryland, or the string of protective forts ringing Baltimore interfered with Coale's camera "ruralizing". It is not known if he resumed his camera work with the same vigor following the Civil War. Coale's obituary in the Baltimore American makes no mention of his passion for photography, describing him merely as "a man of wide information and culture". He was known as an art collector, and was, as well, the second librarian of the Maryland Historical Society.