Cook, George S. Photographer... Under Fire: The Story of George S. Cook by Jack C. Ramsey, Jr.

Historical Resources Press, 1994. Limited edition; Copy #717 of 1,000. Double signed and inscribed to “Gerry.” Based during the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina, Cook has been called, “The Mathew Brady of the South."  Fine hardcover with dust jacket.

Note: On February 23, 1819, George S. Cook was born in Stratford, Connecticut.   Orphaned as an infant, Cook was brought up by his maternal grandmother in Newark, New Jersey.  Beginning at age 14, he traveled widely, became a daguerreotypist in New Orleans, then returned to Newark in 1845 to court Elizabeth Smith Francisco.  He was active in Newark and New York in 1845-1846 and traveled in the South before settling with his wife and son George LeGrange Cook in Charleston, South Carolina, but his career continued to take him to other cities for varying periods, including New York, where he filled in at Mathew Brady’s in 1851 while Brady was in Europe.  Cook had branch galleries in Philadelphia and Chicago, where his partner, S.M. Fassett, photographed Abraham Lincoln.  Back in Charleston, Cook became the leading photographer of the Confederacy and its leading supplier of photographic materials.  In 1865, he returned to Newark and married his second wife, Lavinia Pratt, a niece of his deceased first wife. He spent most of his later years in Charleston and Richmond, Virginia, where he relocated in 1880.  An extensive Cook collection is at the Valentine Museum in Richmond.  Cook died in 1902.