Lodewyk Bendikson

Lodewyk Bendikson (1875-1953) was a US expert on photographic techniques in documentation.

Lodewyk Bendikson

Life

Lodewyk Bendikson was born in 1875 in Amsterdam. He received his early training at The Hague. A military career was originally intended, but he was unable to pass the required eye exams at the age of 12. He studied at the Latin High School (Gymnasium) in Amsterdam, then at the University of Amsterdam medical school graduating M.D. in 1901. He first visited the U.S. to do post graduate work at New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College and was a clinical assistant at Bellevue 1903-06. In 1906 he returned to the Netherlands, worked at the City of Amsterdam Hospital, then returned to the U.S. He established permanent residence in 1909. However, owing to frequent visits to Europe he did not qualify for U.S. citizenship until 1923. Bendikson was influenced by John Shaw Billings, a former Surgeon General of the USA, who was responsible for the consolidation of the New York Public Library in 1910. They had come into contact at the New York Academy of Medicine.

In 1920 Bendikson joined the staff of the New York Public Library, then after six years, he joined the staff of the private library of the railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington in New York in February of 1916. Bendikson was one of the first to join the staff and and moved with it to its new building in San Marino, California, where he established a photographic laboratory in 1921 and developed and publicized photographic techniques for documentary reproduction, restoration, and forensic analysis.

In 1904 he married Estella M. van der Zijl. They lived in Pasadena and had no children. He retired in 1943 and died in 1953.

Contributions

Bendikson worked for the Huntington Library for 27 years, during which time he developed and publicized photographic techniques in documentation, including photostats, microprint (inspiring Fremont Rider), photographic imaging, and forensic methods for deciphering damaged documents and detecting forgeries. His breakthroughs included the use of color filters to make an ink-stained page of Benjamin Franklin autobiography manuscript legible, infra-red imaging to make legible passages redacted by Spanish Inquisition censors, use of ultra-violet radiation to reveal invisible ink used for secret writing in Revolutionary era letters from Silas Deane to John Jay, and microphotographic methods to help distinguish authentic texts from facsimiles.

Bendikson's experimented with photostat reproduction: photographs made directly onto sensitized paper without in intermediate negative. His Huntington photostats were known to be of the best quality, both in terms of image clarity and resistance to fading. He also demonstrated that the fears that microphotographic film would rapidly deteriorate were unfounded. In some cases he was able to adapt existing equipment for his experiments, like his favored Leitz Ultrapak microscope, or the way he used his Leica camera in conjunction with a photostat mounting apparatus for ease of imaging. When he found ultra-violet light sources unsatisfactory for his work, however, he created a new highly successful yet cost-effective type of ultra-violet light source for documentary photography. He was a founding member of the Board of editors and served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Documentary Reproduction, published by the American Library Association, 1938-1942.

Publications

Most of Bendikson’s publications are concerned with photographic techniques in documentation. Others are on early Netherlands imprints. A checklist of Bendikson's publications was complied by M. K. Buckland in 2012 [1]. The more important are briefly characterized in “Lodewyk Bendikson and Photographic Techniques in Documentation, 1910 – 1943.” [2].

• "Phototechnical problems: Some results obtained at the Huntington library." Library Journal 57 (1932): 789-94.
• "The photography of ultra-violet fluorescence." Journal of the Photographic Society of America 1, no 1 (June 1936): 5, 6, 10 & 11.
• "Random thoughts about microphotography." Journal of Documentary Reproduction 2 (Sept 1939): 189-194. A retrospective overview of his work.

Further reading

• Michael K. Buckland. "Lodewyk Bendikson and Photographic Techniques in Documentation, 1910–1943." pp 99-106 in: International Perspectives on the History of Information Science and Technology Worldwide, Baltimore, 2012. Ed. by Toni Carbo and Trudi Bellardo Hahn. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2012. [3]
• The Photographer Versus the Spanish Inquisition. San Marino, CA: The Huntington, 2020. 9 minute video on Bendikson’s forensic methods. [4].
• "Invisible rays solve ancient mysteries." Popular Mechanics Magazine (May 1936): 717-719.
• Jake Zeitlin & Charles S. Dunning. "The camera finds new uses." Review of reviews 91 (Oct 1935): 32-33, 56. A condensed version was published as "Lilliputian libraries." Readers’ Digest 27, no 163 (Nov 1935): 93-94.
• Selke, Vicke. Huntington Library Imaging Center Tour: Lights! Camera! Magic! American Printing History Association. October 15, 2016. [5]

Papers

The Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, CA, has professional papers including correspondence, articles, experimental photographs, lantern slides, etc., 1921-1950. Finding aid at [6]