Professor Alfred Krauth

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textile works stereo1The German photographer Alfred Krauth (1878-1956) only taught for one year at the Höheren Graphischen in Vienna but maintained the title of professor throughout his career. When World War I was over, Krauth returned to Frankfurt am Main and joined with Carl Neithold to establish a photography company, specializing in stereo cameras, viewers, and images. Around 1924, Krauth traveled to the United States to attract customers for their business.

One of the companies Krauth contacted was the Textile Machine Works in Reading Pennsylvania, founded by the German industrialists Ferdinand Thun (1866-1949) and Henry Janssen (born 1866). They manufactured women’s stockings and other products with knitting machines of their own design.

Krauth personally photographed the entire factory, including the workers and the machinery, three years before Charles Sheeler did the same at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge plant. A small collection of these images recently turned up in our graphic arts collection. Here are a few samples.

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textile works stereo2Alfred Krauth, Textile Machine Works, ca. 1924. 20 stereographs. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process

See also Dieter Lorenz, Fotografie und Raum: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stereoskopie (Münster: Waxmann, 2012). Available through googlebooks