John Carbutt: A Forgotten Photography Pioneer

Biographical Bytes from Bala #019

John Carbutt is the forgotten pioneer of Philadelphia photography.  Born in England, he spent the first years of his career as a railroad photographer in Canada and the American West.  After settling in Mount Airy and opening a factory in Wayne Junction, Carbutt was the first person in the country to commercially produce dry photographic plates, the first to produce sheets of celluloid coated with photographic emulsion for making celluloid film, and the first to make commercially available dry plates for x-rays.  Around 1890 he made film 35 mm width for the Kinetoscope, which set the 35 mm film standard for motion picture cameras and still cameras.  At the time of his death in 1905, he was working on a method to produce color film.  John Carbutt is buried in an unmarked grave at Laurel Hill West.