Background
Elmer Underwood was born on October 9, 1860, in Fulton County, Illinois, United States.
Elmer Underwood was born on October 9, 1860, in Fulton County, Illinois, United States.
Beginning work on an Ohio dairy farm at age eleven, Elmer Underwood entered the printing trade at fourteen, serving as an apprentice and journeyman for six years. In 1877 he established his own printing firm in Ottawa, Kansas, specializing in periodicals. Five years later Elmer Underwood and his brother formed the photographic firm Underwood and Underwood, which moved to Baltimore and, in 1897, to New York, where it remains today (as U&U News Photos).
Elmer Underwood and his brother eventually built up a worldwide organization, with branches and agencies in many foreign countries. By 1901 the firm was producing 25,000 photos a day. Just before World War I the brothers established portrait and commercial photo departments, they discontinued the sale and manufacture of stereoscopes in 1921. The company reorganized into four separate firms in 1931.
Elmer Underwood is credited by many as having introduced the first news pictures in 1897 - a stereoscopic record of the Greco-Turkish War. Despite opposition, he persuaded The Illustrated London News to publish the war pictures.