About
Author-Writer-Historian O. Henry Mace
Born Orville Henry Mace, Jr. in the little Missouri river town of Newburg, the author grew up with a camera in one hand and a pen in the other. While working on a history degree at the University of Missouri he ran a small-town photography studio and, in 1971, married his high school sweetheart, Kathryn. In 1973, the couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where Henry worked as a freelance photographer and medical videographer. The two relocated to Laguna Beach, California in 1981, and Henry opened a commercial photography studio in nearby Irvine.
During a visit to an Orange County flea market in 1986, Henry purchased a group of six cased photographs dating from the mid-19th century. His efforts to research the processes that had been used to produce those images were met with frustration when he found that no one had ever written a thorough book on the subject. He set himself to the task, and produced Collector’s Guide to Early Photographs for Wallace-Homestead. Now considered the photo collector’s “bible,” this book has sold over 30,000 copies worldwide, in two editions.
The success of Early Photographs led Henry to produce a second title for Wallace-Homestead’s collector series, Collector’s Guide to Victoriana, in 1991. While photographing Victorian interiors for the book he and his wife fell in love with the small town atmosphere of California’s Gold Country, and they moved to Jackson, California, later that same year. In 1992, Henry published the popular local history, Between the Rivers: A History of Early Calaveras County, California; and, he produced a scholarly paper entitled “History in Your Hands, ” for the University of the Pacific's, 1992 California History Institute Gold Rush Conference.
Henry’s discovery of a rare daguerreotype of inventor Seth Boyden, in 1991, led to a research grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, and publication of the paper, “Seth Boyden: Unsung Pioneer of Photography,” republished as The Boyden Daguerreotype Camera: A History and Analysis of One of America’s Fist Photographic Instruments in the 2005 Daguerreian Annual. The daguerreotype of Seth Boyden that Henry discovered now resides in the Smithsonian Institution.
Henry’s most recent book is a history of America's worst gold mining disaster, entitled 47 Down: The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster and published by John Wiley & Sons. He is currently working on a biography of one of America's premier female Washington correspondents, Ruth Finney.
Above: Recent photograph of the author by photographer and long-time friend, William Dunniway.
