George J. Parrot, the children's photographer

1894 — 1915

A studio run like a nursery: George J. Parrot was born in Fort Wayne about 1871 and returned to the city by way of Warsaw, opening a studio in 1894 at 62 Calhoun. In 1901 he moved to 21–23 West Berry, Frank Barrows's former rooms, and in 1905 he established the Parrot Studio & Art Store at 225–227 East Berry, which remained in business until 1917. Griswold extolled his specialized work in the photography of children: "Mr. Parrot is by profession a photographer who would rather make pictures of children than anything else. His studio oftentimes resembles a nursery, for he makes the boys and girls feel entirely at home, and then, when the feeling of strangeness has disappeared … he captures their poses in the truth telling negative." Parrot argued in print that photography should be elevated to the fine arts, and predicted that "people will buy fewer pictures and those of finer quality than they have in the past." In failing health and long despondent, he took his own life on 8 November 1915, aged forty-five; the Journal-Gazette carried the news on its front page. His studio was purchased by William K. Van de Grift, who advertised the Van de Grift Studio as the successor to Parrot's, and still later passed to Edward Perrey — the city's studio chairs, like its studio rooms, handed down from one working photographer to the next.

Sources:

1. John D. Beatty, Directory of Fort Wayne Photographers 1843–1930 — entries for George J. Parrot and William K. Van de Grift, citing Griswold, Some Fort Wayne Phizes, p. 192, Fort Wayne city directories, 1894–1930, and the Journal-Gazette, 8 November 1915, p. 1.