The Albertype Company

The Albertype Company was founded by Adolph and Herman L. Wittemann in 1890 as

a postcard and viewbook publishing company. The Brooklyn-based company used the

recent technological innovation of the collotype, or albertype, to photomechanically

reproduce images. Amassing photographic negatives of towns and cities across the

United States, the Albertype Company produced over twenty-five thousand collotypes

before its closure in 1952.The company had agents, including Adolph Wittemann, take photographs of different cities and regions, which were then reproduced as collotypes. In addition to using its own archive of original negatives, the Albertype Company also reproduced photographic images taken by other companies or individuals.