Charles Milton Bell

Charles Milton Bell
Image of Bell from his own studio
BornApril 3, 1848
Fredericksburg, Virginia, U.S.
DiedMay 12, 1893 (1893-05-13) (aged 45)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting placeOak Hill Cemetery
Washington, D.C., U.S.
38.913575, -77.058380
NationalityAmerican
Other namesC.M. Bell
Known forPhotography
SpouseAnnie Colley
ChildrenCharles Milton Bell, Jr.
Colley Wood Bell
Websitecmbellstudio.com

Charles Milton Bell (April 3, 1848 – May 12, 1893) was an American photographer who was noted for his portraits of Native Americans and other figures of the United States in the late 1800s. He was called "one of Washington's leading portrait photographers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century" by the Library of Congress.[1]

Bell was the youngest member of a photographer family who had a studio in Washington, D.C. in the 1860s and 1870s. He took over the family studio Bell & Brothers and started his own studio, C. M. Bell, in 1873.[2] Bell worked with Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who sent visiting Native Americans to Bell's studio to have their portraits made. Bell also made photographs of Native Americans for the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of American Ethnology, where he assisted in-house photographers.[3]

  1. ^ "C. M. Bell Collection (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress)". Home | Library of Congress. Retrieved February 25, 2019.
  2. ^ Hannavy, John (2008). Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. New York: Routledge. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2. OCLC 123968757.
  3. ^ "Charles Milton Bell photographs of American Indians · SOVA". SOVA. Retrieved February 25, 2019.