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Records and correspondence of this charitable organization aimed at providing relief to Ireland, and to a lesser extent the highlands of Scotland, during the Irish Potato Famine, 1845-1850.

The collection consists of a random grouping of ambrotypes, daguerreotypes and tintypes; all photographic techniques popular in the United States from the late 1830’s to the turn of the century (19th into 20th). Most of the collection, like the predominant subject matter of these photographic processes, are portraits. Some landscape photography was done using each of the three photographic techniques; few survive. Landscape photography would blossom with the advent of the “paper process” which, though still cumbersome by today’s standards, was much less cumbersome than the equipment and process required, even for the tintype.

Thomas Worth Olcott (1795-1880) was born in Hudson, Columbia County, New York, to Josiah and Carolina Worth Olcott. Olcott eventually became president of the Mechanics and Farmer Bank in Albany, New York, and served on the boards of the Albany Law School and the Dudley Observatory, among others. This collection contains estate records, correspondence, newspaper clippings, bills, account books, photographs, scrapbooks, and genealogical information.