johnmccormacktenor

The camera is a Press Graflex (see pg 27 of the 1914 Graflex catalog). Price adjusted for inflation would be about $4000 of today's dollars. Careful, children!

Ross: Thank you for identifying the camera. We are always glad to get information about the cameras in some of these photos. We will add more details when we update the description.

This house appears in the background of this photograph in this Bain Collection series:
and is likely the home of John McCormack and his family, or part of the estate/farm known as Lilydale, in Noroton, Connecticut,

Pixel Wrangler: Thanks for noticing this house in the related image. We will add the location in the description.

John McCormack (1884-1945), popular Irish tenor; wife is the former Lily Foley: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCormack

Full name John Francis McCormack. Lily Foley McCormack was herself a singer and, like her husband, a Feis Ceoil gold medalist. The couple were married on July 2, 1906. She wrote a biography of her husband titled "I hear You Calling Me." John McCormack's 1918 autobiography, "John McCormack: His Own Life Story" is available for download from Google Books (includes many photos.) Many of McCormack's early recordings can be streamed or downloaded at the Internet Archive. Here is the web site of The John McCormack Society, with much more information about McCormack and his career, and more photos.

A companion Bain/LOC photo of the McCormacks (with nanny) is dated 5/6/13:

Hi, Didn't his wife write a book about him shortly after he died? My Great Aunt joined the Ziegfeld Follies just to see him. No luck. She gave me music lessons using 'I Hear You Calling Me' as my first song. We were both first suprano's. My father also liked his voice, as do I. I still collect CD's by him and sheet music. He wasn't just good, he was GREAT. Once at the library I got a book on him. I believe it was by his wife. Was he a tenor or a first tenor? God Bless, Kathy Donohue

The "50 Great Voices" series by National Public Radio (NPR) includes McCormack, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128538000. "McCormack biographer Gordon T. Ledbetter says McCormack was the greatest musician among singers, with his voice peaking from 1910 to 1920. He sang from the heart and the head, both spontaneously and cerebrally, and could sing anything, from opera to German lieder to Irish folk songs." A digital version of Lily McCormack's biography "I Hear You Calling Me" is at the Hathi Trust, catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007836331 -- Helena (LOC)