The New York Public Library’s Photographer’s Identities Catalog (PIC) website PIC – Photographers’ Identities Catalog states:
“Photographers’ Identities Catalog is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more, PIC is a vast and growing resource for the historian, student, genealogist, or any lover of photography’s history. The information has been culled from trusted biographical dictionaries, catalogs and databases, and from extensive original research by NYPL Photography Collection staff.”
Some problems with the PIC entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon:
As stated, the PIC relies on “trusted” information from a number of published sources, but the source about Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon, The Union List of Artist’s Names (ULAN) published online by the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, has a number of factual errors in need of correction, and lacks bibliographic entries of substance about their photography.
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon- ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)
Augustus Le Plongeon- ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)
The biographical “Note” in the ULAN entry is used for both Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon: “British, of French origins; later lived in America. Augustus worked with his wife Alice, photographing local people and archeological sites, including St.Thomas, Tiahuanaco, and Chichén Itzá.”
An update and corrections to the ULAN biographical note:
1) Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910) was born in London, and had no French origins. Augustus Le Plongeon (1826-1908) was born on the Island of Jersey to French parents.
2) Both Augustus and Alice were trained photographers. Alice learned photography from her father Henry Dixon, a noted London photographer, and Augustus learned photography from the English photographer Fox Talbot. He began practicing photography in the 1850s in San Francisco, California.
3) Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon first met in London in 1871, and were married in New York City before leaving for Yucatán in 1873 to carry out archaeological and photographic projects. Alice did not accompany Augustus on photographic expeditions to the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean or Tiahuanaco, Peru in the 1860s.
4) From 1873 to 1884, the Le Plongeons photographed Maya archaeological sites, ethnographic subjects, made portraits of native peoples and colonialists, landscapes, flora and fauna, and Colonial architecture in Yucatán, Mexico, and British Honduras (Belize).
5) Recently accessed archival materials indicate Alice was behind the camera as much as Augustus, if not more, and was responsible for the processing of their wet collodion glass negatives, and prints.
6) More than 2,500 negatives and prints made by the Le Plongeons are currently archived in public institutions, and private collections.
It should be noted about two years ago the administrator of Getty’s ULAN stated they planned to correct the entry for the Le Plongeons. It was to be based on the Getty Research Institute’s short biographical entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon that can be found in its Finding Aid. The update has yet to be made to the web page, so it was thought prudent to publish this post until corrections are made.
In the meanwhile, for an excellent biographical summary of the Le Plongeons’ lives and work in archaeology and photography consult the Getty Research Institute’s Finding Aid for the Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon collection of photographs and other archival materials. Getty Research Institute: INVENTORY OF THE AUGUSTUS AND ALICE DIXON LE PLONGEON PAPERS, circa 1840-1937, bulk 1860-1910 Le Plongeon (Augustus and Alice Dixon) papers
Additionally, the Wikipedia entries for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon are also an excellent summary.
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Augustus Le Plongeon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For addition background on the Le Plongeon just enter the ArchaeoPlanet Le Plongeon Archive by clicking on the sidebar.