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McCulloch Brothers Inc. Photographs 1884-1947

CP MCLMB

Biographical Note

James Morrison (1870-1945) and William Patrick (1880-1971) McCulloch were born to Joseph and Janet (Thompson) McCulloch (ca. 1838-1898) in Glasgow, Scotland. They were two of nine children, including John McDonald (1862 July 12-), Janet McGregor (1864 May 19-), Henry Thompson (1866 April 29-), Joseph (1868-1961), Elizabeth (1872-1943), Margaret Alexander Smith (McCulloch) Morford (1874-1944), and Annie (ca. 1877-1900). According to their naturalization papers, the brothers landed in Philadelphia in May of 1887 on the Hibernian, apparently with their parents and youngest four siblings. The family settled at 908 Ridge Avenue in Darby, Pennsylvania. James and Will McCulloch were first exposed to photography in 1895 when Janet McCulloch purchased a camera at an auction sale. Both learned to use it and later took it with them to Arizona.

James McCulloch moved to Philadelphia in about 1899 and began managing a jewelery store located at 33 S. 8th Street. His brother Will joined him in the business between 1902 and 1905. Family legend holds that this enterprise was a Wainwright Jewelery Store franchise, but Philadelphia's city directories list James and Will McCulloch as independent jewelers and show no stores with names beginning in "Wainwright Jewellers." The business is said to have burned in 1908, prompting the brothers' move to Arizona.

James McCulloch arrived in Phoenix on October 10, 1909 and formed a commercial photography business, McCulloch and Howard, with Percy Howard in 1913. In its announcement of the firm's formation, the Arizona Republican described McCulloch as "one of Arizona's best known camera experts ... [whose] work has been seen in almost every magazine or booklet issued here since his coming and is much appreciated for its high quality." Howard left the firm in March of 1914 and McCulloch continued to operate as a commercial photographer at the firm's studio at 15 East Adams Street.

There are several accounts of how Will McCulloch came to Phoenix. According his own (likely apocryphal) tale, he was either relocating to Arizona for his health or travelling to California to visit a friend, Andrew Bauman, when he arrived in Phoenix in 1904. McCulloch stepped off the train and found himself in the midst of a group of citizens organizing to defend themselves against cowboys who had been terrorizing the town. He witnessed the ensuing shootout and, fascinated by the city and surrounding desert, decided to set up his photography studio in the area. A substantially more plausible story is the one summarized in his brother James' obituary: Will McCulloch arrived in Phoenix in January of 1908 after hearing reports of the Valley's glowing future, convinced his brother to join him in 1909, and worked in orchards and on ostrich farms until joining his brother in the photography business, which they renamed McCulloch Brothers Inc., in about 1919. Will McCulloch handled most of the photography while James McCulloch dealt with the firm's business concerns. The studio moved to 18 N. 2nd Avenue in 1921, where it operated for the next 25 years. After the deaths of his wife and brother, William McCulloch sold the business to Hobart Pribbenow (1918-1982) in 1946. Pribbenow operated under the McCulloch Bros. name until 1947, when he sold the business to a young photographer from Indiana named Herbert McLaughlin.

Two of the McCullochs' sisters, Elizabeth (known as "Ebbie") and Margaret, joined them in Phoenix in about 1910. After McCulloch Brothers Inc. was formed, both worked in the studio hand-tinting photographs. Elizabeth McCulloch never married. Margaret McCulloch married Nathan Albert Morford (1844-1927) on April 27, 1916 in Phoenix's Trinity Cathedral. In her marriage announcement, she is described as a "well known landscape artist." The couple had no children.

William McCulloch married Beatrice Livermore West (1889-1940) in Boston, Massachusetts on October 17, 1911. The couple lived at 1234 McKinley Avenue in Phoenix, where they raised four children: Janice P. Thompson (1915-1921), Jean Casson (McCulloch) Neathery (1923-1997), William Thompson (1925-2008), and Patricia Beatrice (McCulloch) Neathery (1930-2011). James McCulloch married Margaret Ferguson (1880-1961) in 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. The couple had no children.

Scope and Content Note

This collection houses commercial photographs showing city scenes, streets, architectural views and building construction, commercial activities, water development projects (including dams and canals), landscapes, and agriculture in and around Phoenix, Arizona. Of particular note are the images showing the construction of Frog Tanks Diversion Dam and Lake Pleasant (A101-A353, A357), Arizona guest ranches and resorts (A754-A803), and Roosevelt Dam and the Apache Trail (A357-A372, A378, A381-A392, A404, A409-A411, A413, A418, A472, A946B).

Arrangement

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

To view this collection, make an appointment at least five business days prior to your visit by contacting Ask an Archivist or calling (480) 965-4932. Appointments in the Wurzburger Reading Room at Hayden Library (rm. 138) on the Tempe campus are available Monday through Friday. Check the ASU Library Hours page for current availability.

Copyright

The Arizona Board of Regents retains copyright to this collection for and on behalf of the Arizona State University Library. Requests to publish, display, or redistribute information from this collection must be submitted via our online application.

Related Material

The bulk of the Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin Photograph Collection is cataloged as CP MCL.

Access Terms

Administrative Information

Alternative Form Available

Researchers may access digital versions of all the images in this collection through Arizona State University's Digital Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.C.244.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], McCulloch Brothers Inc. Photographs, CP MCLMB, Arizona State University Library.

Provenance

The McLaughlins acquired the McCulloch Brothers' photographs when Herb McLaughlin bought their business in 1947. They were donated to Arizona State University in 1978 with the rest of the McLaughlin archives.

Processing Note

These photographs were originally processed by Richard Pierce-Moses and Mark Evans in 1992. The guide created at this time described the collection in full through image number A1449 with scattered descriptions through A2150. Numerous updates were made to this document during a digitization project undertaken in 2015. Descriptions for images A1450-A2161 were transcribed from negative envelopes and added to the guide, client names were transcribed from the McCulloch job logs, and unnumbered images discovered during the project were added to the collection as image numbers A2162-A2221. In some cases, it was impossible to tell whether the entry in the job log referred to a client or to the image's subject matter (for example, "Orpheum Theatre"). In these instances, the term provided has been entered as a subject rather than as a client.

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