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Gallery:
The H.H. Bennett Studio
When Henry Hamilton Bennett (1843-1908) began his career as a Wisconsin Dells landscape photographer, he probably never envisioned the effect his photos would have on creating the popular tourist attraction now found on both banks of the Wisconsin River.

Bennett's photography also captured the lives of the Ho-Chunk Indians, one of Wisconsin's native tribes. His photographs of local Ho-Chunk residents and the beauty of the Dells created wonderful images that attracted visitors from across the Midwest and around the world. Through Bennett's promotion, the Wisconsin Dells became a popular tourist attraction in the late 19th century.

Bennett's first wife, Frankie, helped free Bennett from the chores of studio photography so that he could photograph the Dells riverscapes. Frankie managed the studio business and helped in the darkroom processing the wet plate negatives and printing photographs. When she died, Bennett waited several years before remarrying. His second wife, Evaline Marshall Bennett, assumed a similar role, enabling Bennett to photograph the Dells while she helped run the photography business.

With Bennett's death in 1908, Evaline and his daughters ran the business. The H.H. Bennett studio remained a family business until Bennett's granddaughter, Jean Dyer Reese, and her husband Oliver donated the photography lab and photo negative collection to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1998. gallery>>