Amory Nelson Hardy

Amory Nelson Hardy or A.N. Hardy (July 17, 1834, or 1835 – February 24, 1911) was American photographer active in Boston, Massachusetts in the 19th century.^[1][2][3] Portrait subjects included US president Chester A. Arthur, clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, politician James G. Blaine, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison,^[4] doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writer Julia Ward Howe, labor activist Florence Kelley, suffragist Mary Livermore, philanthropist Isabella Somerset, and suffragist Frances Willard.^[5] He also made "electric-light portraits" of roller skaters in 1883.^[6]

Portrait of A.N. Hardy

Biography

Hardy was born in Carmel, Maine, son of schoolteacher Benjamin Hardy. He married Angeline S. Davis in 1857 and had three children: Bertha, Grace, and William. As a young man he started a photography business in Lewiston, Maine, before moving to Boston^[5] where he kept a studio on Winter Street (c. 1873–1878),^[7] Washington Street (c. 1868 and c. 1879–1887),^[8] Temple Place, and Tremont Street. He belonged to the National Photographic Association of the United States, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association,^[9] and, outside of his professional life, the Tremont Temple congregation.^[5] In 1880 he exhibited photos at the first convention of the Photographers Association of America in Chicago.^[10] Hardy worked in Boston during a time when a number of other professional photographers kept studios in the downtown area, including Allen & Rowell, James Wallace Black, Elmer Chickering, William H. Getchell, J.J. Hawes, E.F. Ritz, Antoine Sonrel, and John Adams Whipple.^[11]

Collections

Cabinet card of Lysander Spooner held by the University of Michigan

Examples of Hardy's work are in the collections of the following institutions:

• Boston Athenaeum^[12]
• Boston Public Library
• Dennis Historical Society, Dennis, Massachusetts^[13]
• Harvard University^[14]
• Hingham Historical Society, Hingham, Massachusetts
• Historic New England
• International Center of Photography^[15]
• Massachusetts Historical Society
• New York Public Library^[16]
• US Library of Congress^[17]
• US National Portrait Gallery^[18]