Agustín Casasola facts for kids

Agustín Víctor Casasola (born July 28, 1874 – died March 30, 1938) was a famous Mexican photographer. He was also one of the people who helped create the Mexican Association of Press Photographers.

Casasola started his career working with words, not pictures. He was a typographer for a newspaper called El Imparcial. A typographer is someone who arranges text for printing. Later, he became a reporter, writing stories for the newspaper. In the early 1900s, he switched to photography, becoming a professional photographer in 1894.

Starting a Photo Agency

By 1911, Agustín Víctor Casasola was known for starting Mexico's first press agency, called Agencia Fotografica Mexicana. A press agency collects and sells news photos to different newspapers and magazines. The interim president at the time, Francisco León de la Barra, even thanked Casasola. He said Casasola had "started a new phase of freedom in press photography." This meant that photos were becoming a very important part of news.

By the end of 1912, his agency grew bigger. It changed its name to Agencia Mexicana de Informacion Fotografica. The agency hired more photographers. It also started buying pictures from other agencies around the world and from amateur photographers. Then, it would share these photos with newspapers across Mexico.

Capturing History: The Mexican Revolution

When the newspaper El Imparcial closed down in 1917, Casasola did something very important. He saved all the newspaper's old photos and documents. He put many of these pictures together into a famous collection called "Album histórico gráfico." This album showed the events of the Mexican Revolution, a big civil war in Mexico.

Casasola was only able to print the first six books of this album. These books covered the years from 1910 to 1912. People believe the full collection wasn't printed because after the war, people wanted to forget the sadness and suffering. They wanted to move on from those difficult times.

The Casasola Family and Their Legacy

In 1920, Agustín Víctor Casasola and other important Mexican photographers started the Mexican Association of Press Photographers. This group helped professional photographers work together.

Casasola worked closely with his brother, Miguel (1876-1951). Their family business grew even more when his sons and daughters joined. These included Gustavo (1900-1982), Agustín (1901-1980), Ismael (1902-1964), Dolores (1907-2001), Piedad (1909-1953), and Mario (1923-1988). The work continued with the third generation of the family, including Ismael (1926-1970), Juan (1937-1984), and Agustín (1930-1995).

Today, Casasola's huge collection of photos is called the Casasola Archive. It is a very important part of Mexico's official photo collection, the Fototeca Nacional. This national archive is managed by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico in Pachuca.

The Casasola Archive has more than 500,000 photos and negatives. It's important to know that this archive isn't just photos taken by Agustín Víctor Casasola himself. It includes pictures from about 500 different photographers! Researchers have found that sometimes the names of the original photographers were removed. Casasola's name was put instead. This might have happened because Casasola understood how important it was to create one strong "brand" or name. This helped his agency compete with other photo news agencies from other countries that were coming into Mexico during the Revolution.

See also

In Spanish: Agustín Víctor Casasola para niños