Martha's Vineyard Museum

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Biography/Historical Note

Scope and Content of Collection

Administrative Information

Related Materials

Index Terms

Collection Contents

Descriptive Summary

Repository	Martha's Vineyard Museum, Gale Huntington Research Library 59 School Street P.O. Box 1310 Edgartown, MA 02539 (508)627-4441
Call Number	RU 445
Creator	Hine, C. G. (Charles Gilbert), 1859-1931
Title	C. G. Hine albums and publications
Date	circa 1873-1931
Extent	1 record carton + 1 oversize box + 1 oversize folder (1.366 cubic feet)
Language	The materials are in English.
Abstract	This collection contains photograph albums and publications created by Charles Gilbert Hine between 1884 and 1928. Charles Gilbert Hine, 1859-1931, known as C. G. Hine, was an insurance publisher, author of local history and amateur photographer.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use and Reproduction Restrictions

Requests to reproduce material from this collection should be directed to the library's staff. Reproduction fees may apply.

Acquisition Information

Gift in honor of Mary Risk Hine in 2011. (Accession no. 2011.005)

Custodial History

Please contact the Chief Curator for more information regarding the custodial history of this collection.

Bibliography

Hine, C. G. "Conceits of Amateur Bookbinders," in Harper's Bazar 32:50 (December 16, 1899), p. 1094-1095.

New-York Historical Society Museum and Library. "Guide to the Charles Gilbert Hine Photograph Collection." New-York Historical Society, 2011. http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/hine/ (accessed April 23, 2013)

Publication Information

Martha's Vineyard Museum

Gale Huntington Research Library
59 School Street
P.O. Box 1310
Edgartown, MA 02539
(508)627-4441

Processing Information

Finding aid prepared by Insley Julier April 2013. Machine-encoded by Nathaniel Janick April 2014.

 Creation of this finding aid was sponsored by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Related Materials

Related Materials

See also, RU 446, Daughters of the American Revolution Collection of C. G. Hine Albums and Ruth F. Dunham Album; RU 447, C. G. Hine Scrapbook and Newspapers; and, RU 21, Henry Beetle Hough Collection.

Additional copies of: Hine, C. G. The History of Cedar Neck: Set to Words (1907), and, Hine, C. G. The Story of Martha's Vineyard: From the Lips of its Inhabitants Newspaper Files and Those Who Have Visited its Shores, including Stray Notes on Local History and Industries (1908), are found in the library collections.

Biography/Historical Note

Charles Gilbert Hine, 1859-1931, known as C. G. Hine, was a publisher and editor of insurance periodicals, an author of local history and an amateur photographer. He resided in the tri-state area and on the island of Martha's Vineyard. He was born on September 12, 1859 in New Albany, Indiana to Charles Cole Hine, 1825-1897, and Mary Hazard Avery, 1822-1907. He had two siblings; Thomas A. and Edward A. In 1868, C. G. Hine's father, Charles Cole Hine became owner and editor of an insurance publishing house in New York City and he moved his family to a Newark suburb, Woodside, New Jersey. The company produced publications of insurance forms and policies, as well as, trade periodicals, including the Insurance Monitor. The family spent their summers on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts where C. G. Hine's grandparents had a house.

In 1873 Charles Gilbert Hine's father purchased a large parcel of land on the Lagoon Pond in Tisbury, Massachusetts. The area was then known as Cedar Neck. Hine's father hoped to profit from the purchase, and he subdivided the acreage into 98 building lots. The development was not a success however, and the Hine family occupied the property in relative seclusion until the 1920s when the property was sold. They built their summer home on a point of land extending into the Lagoon Pond, which is now known as Hines Point. In November 1898, the Hine's home was destroyed in a storm and in 1899 the family rebuilt on a different site, using salvaged materials from the original house.

Charles Gilbert Hine and his brothers, Thomas Avery Hine, 1855-1933 and Edward A. Hine, learned the insurance publishing trade from their father. When C. C. Hine died in 1897, his sons assumed management of the company which became, C. C. Hine's Sons Company. Charles G. Hine was appointed President, Thomas A. Hine, Treasurer and Edward A. Hine, Secretary. Their offices were located at 100 William Street in New York City.

Charles C. Hine also taught his sons photography and the family's Vineyard home included a darkroom. The Hine brothers developed a great appreciation for the medium and, with their father, became founding members of the Newark Camera Club. An 1889 issue of The American Amateur Photographer lists C. G. Hine as the club's Director (an annual appointment), and during the early 1890s he served for several years as Secretary of the club. Hine combined his passion for photography with his business connections in the publishing industry, privately printing a number of works describing family excursions to the White Mountains and Nova Scotia, and the history of New York, New Jersey and Martha's Vineyard. He titled this series Hine's Annuals. As a historian and photographer Hine took particular interest in the geographic areas in which he lived or worked and his texts and images depict or describe; New York City, NY; Kingston, NY; Staten Island, NY; Woodside, NJ; the Hudson River; Martha's Vineyard, MA and his family's property at Cedar Neck, Martha's Vineyard.

Around 1910 C. G. Hine moved to Staten Island, New York. Hine married Sarah Tilden in 1915 and the pair moved to East Orange, New Jersey. In later years, in ill-health, Hine came to live on the island at the recommendation of his doctor. However, he retained his residence in New Jersey. He died June 6, 1931 and was buried in Newark, New Jersey.

Scope and Content of Collection

This collection contains photograph albums and publications created by C. G. (Charles Gilbert) Hine between 1884 and 1928. The albums primarily pertain to the island of Martha's Vineyard, though other geographic locales and topics of interest are also featured. The works combine Hine's passion for photography with an interest in amateur bookbinding.

Some of the albums in this collection appear to be professionally bound, while others may have been bound by Hine himself. In an 1899 December 16 issue of Harper's Bazar, Hine contributed an article titled, the "Conceits of Amateur Bookbinders." The article describes in detail the methods used to produce and decorate many of the albums in this collection. One of the works used to illustrate the article, bound in straw matting and leather, can be found in this collection, (see object number 2011.005.002). Other albums in the collection are bound in commercially produced silk, cordovan leather stamped with gold text, or handmade, light-sensitized textiles featuring botanic silhouettes. Many of the albums also have hand-made, decorative endpapers, frequently made with blueprint paper. These are known as cyanotypes.

Hine's role in the family publishing business allowed him to privately print several works pertaining to the island of Martha's Vineyard and his family's property at Cedar Neck. However, he also wrote some of the texts by hand, recounting excursions, events and summer adventures. He illustrated the volumes with his own photographs, which he was able to develop in a darkroom located in the family's Martha's Vineyard home. The albums and publications contain black-and-white photographic prints including, platinum, gelatin silver and albumen prints. One volume includes cyanotypes and photograms. Several of the works in this collection were produced in collaboration with Hine's brother, Thomas A. Hine, whose photographs also appear. Some of the albums contain photographs pasted or tipped in with no accompanying text, while others include a few brief, hand-written captions in pencil or ink, indicating where the photographs were shot.

The collection also contains two copies of a limited edition 1907 publication, privately printed and authored by C. G. Hine: The History of Cedar Neck: Set to Words. The two copies of this history contain the same printed text and both are numbered edition 1, but they include different photographic prints and have different layouts and dimensions. One copy is bound in yellow cloth and the other is bound with decorative paper. The history of Cedar Neck is largely comprised of Hine family anecdotes. Additionally, the collection includes a second publication authored by C. G. Hine: The Story of Martha's Vineyard: From the Lips of its Inhabitants Newspaper Files and Those Who Have Visited its Shores, including Stray Notes on Local History and Industries. This volume is illustrated with photomechanical reproductions of photographs created by C. G. Hine and Thomas A. Hine. It was published in New York by the Hine brothers firm in 1908. The copy in this collection is labeled as the author's presentation copy. Other printed works in the collection include: Cedar Neck, Martha's Vineyard, Mass.: A Summer Adventure, 1928, by Hine and The Legend and History of Cedar Neck: From the Earliest Times to the Present, with a Full and Authentic Account of the Early Inhabitants and their Humane Treatment by the Pilgrim Fathers, with prose and verse by S. A. Clark and illustrations by C. G. Hine.

In addition, the collection includes a few loose papers including tax bills, a brochure on Charles Cole Hine's Cedar Neck subdivision, postcards, an essay on fishing and photographs.

Due to their fragile condition, the albums and printed volumes have been rehoused in protective enclosures. These enclosures bear museum object numbers on the spine and front cover for identification purposes.

Arrangement

The volumes are arranged by object number, with one exception: object number 2011.005.002 is filed before 2011.005.001, due to its size. Three files containing loose items removed from the albums to archival folders for preservation reasons have been filed first.