Calculating Calcutta; Oldest Photographs of West Bengal [Kolkata] by Francis Frith (1853-1870’s)

Howdy ya’ll. According to the current narrative, the massive city of Calcutta (modern Kolkata) was nearly destroyed by cyclone in the year 1864. Today we will look at the first known photographs of Calcutta, with a majority of the images dating to before the loss of much of the ancient architecture during the storm. These photographs come from the 19th century collection of Francis Frith.

Marvelously, Frith is noted as having the largest photographic collection of the 1800’s, with a recorded 330,000 negatives spanning across over 7,000 towns and cities. Frith was also the first book publisher to focus solely on photographic books, or books dedicated solely to photographs his company had captured.

Today we will focus on his original photographs of Calcutta, dating from roughly the mid 1850’s through the 1870’s, while briefly discussing the current narrative, and the impact Calcutta had on the larger West Bengal region. I’d love to hear your thoughts down below. Thanks for joining me today, and enjoy!
Topics discussed today;

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_of_India_by_Francis_Frith (Full Calcutta Image Collection)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kolkata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Frith

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