Fred Hartsook

Fred Hartsook was an American photographer and owner of a California studio chain described as the largest photographic business in the world at the time, who counted Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Mary Pickford, and sitting President Woodrow Wilson among his celebrity clients. He later became the owner of the Hartsook Inn, a resort in Humboldt County, and two ranches in Southern California on which he reared prized Holstein cattle. Hartsook was married to Bess Hesby, queen of the San Francisco PanPacific Exposition of 1915.

Fred Hartsook was born onOctober 1876 in Marion, Indiana to John Hartsook and Abbie, ne Gorham. He was born into a family of photographers and studio owners, his father and two uncles were all successful in the business and his grandfather had been the first photographer to open a studio in Virginia. According to a 1921 profile by John S. McGroarty, the first Hartsooks up the profession when it was in the infancy of development with the old daguerrotype and the first wet plate processes.

Source: Wikipedia