A01=Gary D. Saretzky
A01=New Jersey State Museum
A01=Nicholas P. Ciotola
Aesthetic Qualities
Amateur Artist
Archival Discovery
Art Photography
Author_Gary D. Saretzky
Author_New Jersey State Museum
Author_Nicholas P. Ciotola
Belvidere
Black and White Photography
Canal
Category=AJ
Category=AJC
Category=AJCD
Category=AJF
Category=NH
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
City
Collective work
Cultural History
Disasters
Discovering Grant Castner
Education
Electricity
Engineering
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fair
Fairs
Family
Fires
Floods
Glass Plate Negatives
Grant Castner
Historical Documentation
Historical Photography
History
History of Photography
Human Interest Stories
Hunterdon County
Industry
Natural Landscapes
Nature
Neighbors
New Jersey
New Jersey History
New Jersey State Museum
Parades
Photographic Processes
Photography
Public Amusements
Race
Rails
River
Shore
Social Change
Social Class
Social History
Time Machine
Transportation
Trenton
Turn of the 20th Century
Visual Journey.
Visual Record
Work
Youth
Product details
- ISBN 9781978845206
- Weight: 926g
- Dimensions: 216 x 279mm
- Publication Date: 10 Feb 2026
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In July 2019, staff of the New Jersey State Museum visited a cramped and dusty storage locker in Hunterdon County. Inside was a treasure trove of more than one thousand glass plate negatives. Each negative preserved an image of New Jersey at the turn of the 20th century. They once belonged to a Trenton resident who had used the plates as tools for his chosen art form. His name was Grant Castner. His art was photography.
Castner’s glass plate negatives are a visual record of New Jersey’s social and cultural history. His many human subjects are rich and poor, young and old, Black and white. They are at work, at play, at home, and in the community. Castner also documented social change brought about by electricity, engineering, education, industry, and transportation. He captured the excitement of public amusements such as parades and fairs. He recorded the aftermath of floods, fires and other disasters. Castner also had a fondness for the outdoors. He used his camera to reflect on the beauty and tranquility that he found in the natural landscapes of New Jersey.
This book presents the collective work of Grant Castner, an amateur artist whose place in New Jersey history was, until now, completely unknown. His photographic negatives forever preserve pinpoint moments in the past. They are time machines to another era. Let this long lost archive transport you on a visual journey into a New Jersey of days gone by.
Castner’s glass plate negatives are a visual record of New Jersey’s social and cultural history. His many human subjects are rich and poor, young and old, Black and white. They are at work, at play, at home, and in the community. Castner also documented social change brought about by electricity, engineering, education, industry, and transportation. He captured the excitement of public amusements such as parades and fairs. He recorded the aftermath of floods, fires and other disasters. Castner also had a fondness for the outdoors. He used his camera to reflect on the beauty and tranquility that he found in the natural landscapes of New Jersey.
This book presents the collective work of Grant Castner, an amateur artist whose place in New Jersey history was, until now, completely unknown. His photographic negatives forever preserve pinpoint moments in the past. They are time machines to another era. Let this long lost archive transport you on a visual journey into a New Jersey of days gone by.
Nicholas P. Ciotola is the curator of cultural history at the New Jersey State Museum. Previously, he was a curator at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh (1998-2009). In twenty-five years as a museum professional, he has served as project director, curator and/or author for numerous exhibitions, books and articles on American history and material culture.
Gary D. Saretzky, archivist, educator, and photographer, worked as an archivist for more than fifty years at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Educational Testing Service, and the Monmouth County Archives. He taught history of photography at Mercer County Community College, 1977-2012, and coordinated the Rutgers Public History Internship Program, 1994-2016.
