Amory Nelson Hardy

Amory Nelson Hardy or A.N. Hardy (July 17, 1834, or 1835 – February 24, 1911) was American photographer active in Boston, Massachusetts in the 19th century. Portrait subjects included US president Chester A. Arthur, clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, politician James G. Blaine, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writer Julia Ward Howe, labor activist Florence Kelley, suffragist Mary Livermore, philanthropist Isabella Somerset, and suffragist Frances Willard. He also made "electric-light portraits" of roller skaters in 1883.

Biography Hardy was born in Carmel, Maine, son of schoolteacher Benjamin Hardy. He married Angeline S. Davis in 1857 and had three children: Bertha, Grace, and William. As a young man he started a photography business in Lewiston, Maine, before moving to Boston where he kept a studio on Winter Street (c. 1873–1878), Washington Street (c. 1868 and c. 1879–1887), Temple Place, and Tremont Street. He belonged to the National Photographic Association of the United States, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and, outside of his professional life, the Tremont Temple congregation. In 1880 he exhibited photos at the first convention of the Photographers Association of America in Chicago. Hardy worked in Boston during a time when a number of other professional photographers kept studios in the downtown area, including Allen & Rowell, James Wallace Black, Elmer Chickering, William H. Getchell, J.J. Hawes, E.F. Ritz, Antoine Sonrel, and John Adams Whipple.

Collections

Examples of Hardy's work are in the collections of the following institutions: Boston Athenaeum Boston Public Library Dennis Historical Society, Dennis, Massachusetts Harvard University Hingham Historical Society, Hingham, Massachusetts Historic New England International Center of Photography Massachusetts Historical Society New York Public Library US Library of Congress US National Portrait Gallery