Background
William Herman Rau was born on January 19, 1855, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.He was the son of German and Swiss immigrants, Peter and Mary Witschi Rau.
William Herman Rau was born on January 19, 1855, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.He was the son of German and Swiss immigrants, Peter and Mary Witschi Rau.
At the age of 13, William H. Rau started doing photographic work for his future father-in-law, William Bell, who was a medical and survey photographer for the federal government.
William Rau began his photographic career in 1877 in his father-in-law's stereograph company, which Bell had begun after a career as a government survey photographer. In 1878 Rau purchased the company, publishing stereo cards and lantern slides under his own name. In 1901 Underwood & Underwood acquired the business, continuing distribution of William Rau's work until Griffith & Griffith took over that task.
William Rau worked briefly with William Henry Jackson in the 1880s, and in 1899 was hired by the Lehigh Valley Railroad to produce a portfolio of scenic views along the railroad line from Perth Amboy to Niagara Falls and Buffalo.
William Rau also did journalistic work, such as documenting the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood, and the Baltimore fire of 1904.
Rau's portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt
The Dewey Arch in New York
The Eiffel Tower at night
Inaugural address of President Roosevelt
1905Arrival of the RMS Olympic in New York Harbor
1911Refugees of Mount Pelée's eruption
1902Great Baltimore Fire aftermath
1904A woman of Achill Island in Ireland
Inside the "Great Bazaar" of Moscow
Dervishes near Damascus