[Fine Binding | Stikeman | Photograph Album] Minneapolis

Minneapolis [Photo Album]. An album of seventeen photographs from around the Minneapolis area, featuring a variety of historic and architecturally significant structures. Bound in crushed morocco by Stikeman & Co. (signed on inner turn-in) with gilt tooling at corners, floral ornaments to five of six spine compartments (with "Minneapolis" to second compartment), gilt tooled turn-ins and suede endpapers. All edges gilt. Measures 7.75" x 9.25". Rubbing, edgewear, and fading to covers; chipping to head and tail of spine.

Photographs:

• The Northwestern Guaranty Loan (later Metropolitan) Building. Built in 1890. At twelve stories it was the Twin Cities' tallest nineteenth-century skyscraper. (Three photos)
• New York Life Insurance Building. Also built in 1890, the 10-story New York Life Insurance Co. stood at the corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue South.
• YMCA Building
  
• Masonic Temple
  
• Stone Arch Bridge (under construction). Built over the course of twenty-two months in 1882 and 1883, the Stone Arch Bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis is a feat of engineering and a reminder of the importance of rail traffic in the late nineteenth century. (This photograph was taken during its construction.)
• The West Hotel. (Two photos)
• Grand Opera House. Built in 1883, torn down in 1897, located near the corner of Nicollet and Sixth Street.
• Washburn Mill. The newly rebuilt 1880 structure was the most technologically advanced in the world. Records suggest that the mill at peak capacity could produce enough flour to make 12 million loaves of bread a day. 
  
• Minnehaha Falls. Two photos; a great picture of several boys at the bottom of the Falls, and a smaller photo of the Falls from the top. 
  
• Saint Anthony Falls and Exposition Building. Built in less than a year, the Industrial Exposition Building in Minneapolis housed the city's first Industrial Exposition in 1886 and the Republican National Convention of 1892. (Two photos)
  
• Unidentified lake, potentially Bde Maka Ska or Harriet.
• The final image in the book is the Norman Kittson House, which was on the corner of Summit & Selby in St. Paul. Completed in 1884, it was torn down to make way for the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Four of the photographs bear the imprint of “Sweet Studios”, and given the wide variety of images featured here and deluxe binding, this may have been some type of salesman's sample or promotional item for the studio. The binding looks to be contemporaneous with the opening of the Sweet Studio in 1897.

"At the end of the 19th century a new studio emphasizing art and elegance came into existence as the Sweet Studio, operated by Louis and Frank Sweet of Minneapolis. Born in Minnesota in 1868 and 1870, they opened the carved oak door to their stylish studio in the Syndicate Arcade on Nicollet Avenue in 1897. An exceptional series of photographs survives to document the artistic, Mission style of the studio's gallery and
waiting rooms designed by Louis Sweet himself to be 'One of the Cities Show Places.' The brothers Sweet were talented in both landscape and portrait photography, but instead of stereographs or cabinet portraits, they printed 8x10 landscapes and encased large portraits in elegant folders" ("Working the Light", MNHS).