Discovering Grant Castner: The Lost Archive of a New Jersey Photographer

In July 2019, staff of the New Jersey State Museum visited a cramped and dusty storage locker in Hunterdon County. Inside was a treasure trove of more than one thousand glass plate negatives. Each negative preserved an image of New Jersey at the turn of the 20th century. They once belonged to a Trenton resident who had used the plates as tools for his chosen art form. His name was Grant Castner. His art was photography.

Castner’s glass plate negatives are a visual record of New Jersey’s social and cultural history. His many human subjects are rich and poor, young and old, Black and white. They are at work, at play, at home, and in the community. Castner also documented social change brought about by electricity, engineering, education, industry, and transportation. He captured the excitement of public amusements such as parades and fairs. He recorded the aftermath of floods, fires and other disasters. Castner also had a fondness for the outdoors. He used his camera to reflect on the beauty and tranquility that he found in the natural landscapes of New Jersey.

This book presents the collective work of Grant Castner, an amateur artist whose place in New Jersey history was, until now, completely unknown. His photographic negatives forever preserve pinpoint moments in the past. They are time machines to another era. Let this long lost archive transport you on a visual journey into a New Jersey of days gone by.

Nicholas P. Ciotola has been the New Jersey State Museum’s Curator of Cultural History since 2009. Previously, he was a curator at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh (1998-2009). In twenty-five years as a museum professional, he has served as project director, curator and/or author for numerous exhibitions, books and articles on American history and material culture.

Gary D. Saretzky, archivist, educator, and photographer, worked as an archivist for more than fifty years at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Educational Testing Service, and the Monmouth County Archives. He taught history of photography at Mercer County Community College, 1977-2012, and coordinated the Rutgers Public History Internship Program, 1994-2016.