Photographs and Artistic Renderings
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Frick Company, George (Waynesboro, Pa.)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Frick Company Records
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1880-circa 1950
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0293, Series 5
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series contains photographs and artistic renderings of photographs of Frick products largely used as illustrations in trade literature (catalogs, pamphlets and other publications) and for documentation of production, as well as photography of buildings and offices of Frick and Company. A substantial portion of the product photographs was staged inside the foundry, either as examples of the product line or to document a product built to specification before it was shipped to the buyer. Often the machinery is mounted on blocks and surrounded by drapes to control lighting and ensure a blank background. Occasionally a photograph was then artistically altered for inclusion in a catalog, either being rendered entirely as a drawing, or by altering the photo itself with ink or crayon to adjust lighting and highlight lines. This was also done for parts and components of the larger machines. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (as photography became more practical), Frick was photo-documenting its machinery where it was actually installed, in businesses across the nation and around the world.

Subseries 5.1 Frick Buildings, Offices, and Operations contains photographs and drawings of the Waynesboro foundry, including birds-eye views of the entire factory, interior shots of the machine shops and storage yards, and shots of the offices and workers. There are photos of the many Frick branch offices that had opened across the country by the late 1800s, as well as a photo of George Frick's home in Ringgold, Pennsylvania.

Subseries 5.2 Portable, Stationary, and Traction Engines focuses on Frick's engines of all types, most of which were used on farms and in mills (Eclipse), but some of which (Corliss) developed into the engines that would run refrigeration machinery in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. Some of the latter are also pictured in subseries 4 and 5, in combination with compressors to form refrigeration machines.

Subseries 5.3 Other Machinery includes Frick-produced steam boilers and components, a 20-ton crane and a double-plunger.

Subseries 5.4-5.8 Ice Making and Refrigeration Equipment focuses on photo-documenting Frick's manufacture of innovative refrigeration machinery, including many different forms of ammonia and CO2 compressors, ice making supplies, cold storage units (including brine tanks, condenser pipes and heating/cooling coils), and early combined refrigeration units using Freon. By far the largest representation is the vertical open-type ammonia compressor, the manufacture of which, in combination with the Corliss engine systems, formed the backbone of Frick's refrigeration line from the 1880s through the start of World War I.

Subseries 5.9 and 5.10 Installations contains photographs of Frick ice plants and cold storage as installed in different businesses across the United States and around the world, including installations in Japan, India, South Africa, and Greece. Represented industries include brewing, creamery/dairy plants, meat-packing, frozen fish/bait, food storage, and ice making. Subseries 10 also features a large number of photographs detailing the installation of a ship-wide cold storage unit aboard the S.S. Wheaton, for use in shipping large quantities of frozen fish across the Atlantic Ocean.