Edward A. Bromley Photographs

An early Minneapolis photographer and photo collector, Edward A. Bromley was born in New Haven, Conn. September 24, 1848. He died in Minneapolis on June 21, 1925, at the age of 76.

Bromley arrived in Minnesota with his parents in 1867, first living in St. Paul and later Minneapolis. He worked as a news reporter and photographer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where he gained interest in chronicling history, particularly American Indian history. He transferred to the Minneapolis edition of the Pioneer Press in 1877 and began working for the Minneapolis Journal in 1894.

After a failed attempt to collect coins, Bromley embarked on a life-long project to collect photographs and negatives of the pioneer days in Minnesota. His first purchase of negatives was from B. F. Upton of St. Anthony, from whom he purchased over 500 negatives in 1878 when Upton relocated to Florida. He also purchased 1,600 negatives from W. H. Illingworth’s gallery in St. Paul. During his first ten years of collecting, Bromley purchased the negatives and plates of 30 other photographers (including Pepper, Jacoby, Rugg, and Harvey) totaling about 7,000 negatives.

Bromley’s collection included photographs taken by himself as well. He had a particular interest in American Indians and would take one of his cameras and go out among the tribes, looking for feature stories. He also took photographs of prominent Minnesota men. In 1898, Bromley was sent with the Minnesota troops as a war correspondent in the Spanish-American war for the Minneapolis Times.

In 1900, Bromley published a book of his collected photographs, “Minneapolis Album: A Photographic History of the Early Days in Minneapolis, A Collection of Views Illustrative of the City's Growth from the Earliest Settlement Down to 1880, With Accompanying Descriptive Matter and Portraits of Pioneer Citizens, Forming A Complete Historical Picture.”