| photography related industry in Rochester (New York) |
| American Camera | Bausch & Lomb | Blair | Century | Crown Optical Co. | Elgeet | Folmer & Schwing | Gassner and Marx | Graflex | Gundlach | Ilex | JML | Kodak | Milburn | Monroe | PMC | Ray | Reichenbach, Morey and Will | Rochester Camera and Supply Co. | Rochester Optical Co. | Seneca | Sunart | Walker | Wollensak |
| and in Rochester (Minnesota) |
| Conley |
| external links |
| graflex.org - Rudolf Kingslake's "Optical industry in Rochester (N.Y.)" |
Seneca Camera Mfg. Co. was a camera maker based in the American photography capital Rochester, New York. The company was founded at the end of the 19th century. Its chiefs were the former superintendent at Kodak Camera Works Frank T. Day, president, William C. Whitlock, vice-president, and Lorin E. Mason. They bought the assets of the Sunart company which was not very successful. Seneca itself managed to get a larger share of the American camera market. It made a series of simpler cameras for everybody, mainly the Scout series of box cameras and rollfilm folders. And it made several big view cameras like the Competitor, plate box cameras like the Cyclone, and folding bed plate cameras like the Improved Seneca View, the No. 29 Pocket Seneca, the Black Beauty and the Seneca Chautauqua. Of course Seneca put some products into other popular market segments, for example the Vest Pocket Roll Rilm Seneca Camera.
The name of the company was derived from the name of the Seneca-Iroqois Red Indians. A county in the state of New York was already named after them. Many ads and advertising brochures of the company showed Indians as eye-catchers.
In 1901 the company had rooms in the fifth floor of the Leary Dye Works, a brick building at the corner of Platt and Mill Street. In spring a fire destroyed the house were 25 Seneca employees were working. Many were rescued, some by workers of Bridgeford's machine shop who managed to find large pieces of canvas on which they could catch people who were jumping out of the windows of the burning house. The damage for Seneca was 40.000 US-Dollar, uninsured. [from New York Times, March 2, 1901]
In 1924 the company was sold to Conley which was wholly owned by Sears & Roebuck at that time. Seneca disappeared in 1926.
Links
- Seneca view cameras at Field Cameras of the United States [1]
- Seneca Cyclone box camera at BoxCamera.com [2]
- Competitor View at Click on David [3]
- Manual ot he Vest Pocket at M. Butkus Jr.'s [4]