Henry Peter Bosse
Henry Peter Bosse (1844–1903) was a German-American photographer, cartographer and civil engineer. An artist. Henry Peter Bosse was a prescient photographer in that he foresaw and adhered to aesthetic values which have come to define the work of German photo-journalists around the world. Straightforward composition and a concern for the efforts of man characterize Bosse's photographic point of view, as it would come to be the basis of "foto-reportage". Bosse took great care when making his presentation albums. He foresaw the need for color: the intense moody blues of his refined cyanotypes reflect  this concern. His cyanotypes were exposed with large glass plates and printed on the finest French cyanotype paper, each sheet off-white measuring 14.5" x 17.2" and bearing the watermark "Johannot et Cie. Annonay, aloe's satin". The albums are leather bound. Beyond technique, in his appreciation for railroad bridges and structural steel, Bosse stood at the forefront of German appreciation for photographic "look books" concerned with the hand of man, modern architecture and urban design. An engineer and a cartographer. Henry Peter Bosse was one of the highest-paid technical people of his day in the United States. The  1880s were the beginning of structural steel buildings and cable suspension bridges like Röbling's Brooklyn Bridge (1883); at the time Bosse was a top engineer at the key point where railroads companies wanted to cross the wide Mississippi River. Bosse's photography assisted with his creation of the most accurate map yet made of the upper Mississippi which, in turn, facilitated the engineering of bridges, locks and levees. Several variants of his drawn maps exist, while his album of photographs, per se, may have been the first photographic map of a major river ever created. In public collections. Since  the Alexander Mackenzie album of Henry Bosse cyanotypes surfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1990, Henry Bosse's cyanotype photographs have been included in the permanent collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California, The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Texas, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minnesota. The United States Army Corps of Engineers offices at Rock Island, Illinois  and St. Paul, Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, and elsewhere also retain Bosse photograph albums. The Corp offices also have various Bosse photographs, charts/maps and ephemera. An inventory. A inventory of known Henry Peter Bosse photographic views and print variants was first assembled by Bob Wiederanders of the Fred W. Woodward Riverboat Museum, Dubuque, Iowa. Kenton Spading, P.E., U.S Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, with the capable assistance of Roberta (Bobbie) Peterson, expanded the inventory.