He was born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 7, 1865, to George Bain and Clara Mather. His family moved from Chicago to St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Saint Louis University as an undergraduate to study chemistry, and later attained a law degree from the same institution.^[1]

After graduation, Bain became a reporter at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The following year he moved to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he became the Washington, D.C. correspondent.^[1] He worked for United Press before he started the Bain News Service in 1898.^[1]

He died at age 79, on April 20, 1944, at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.^[1]

The George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division comprises approximately 40,000 glass plate negatives and 50,000 photographic prints.^[2] Most are scanned and have been made available online. Most date from the 1900s to the mid-1920s, but some are as early as the 1860s, and some as late as the 1930s.

The majority of Bain's images depict events in New York City, but he also copied extant images of worldwide events for news distribution purposes.^[3] "The Bain picture files richly document local sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations", the library notes.^[2]

There are no known copyright restrictions on the photographs in the Collection,^[3] although some of Bain's most important images had historically been marked with a copyright notice to prevent unauthorized distribution.

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  Two girls wearing banners bearing the slogan "ABOLISH CH[ILD] SLAVERY!!" in English and Yiddish, 1909
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  Albertina Rasch, gypsy dance, 1915
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  Alexandra Fyodorovna
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  Argentine Rivadavia-class battleship, 1912
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  The "Bennett Sisters" boxing
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  Four men with wreckage of Blériot's plane at Reims, 1909
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  The Brox Sisters, posed with toy car. Left to right: Loryane, Bobbe, Patricia
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  Anton Lang as Christ, at the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1900
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  Doris Kenyon
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  The gun shop at Armstrong Works, 1902–1903
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  Pair of 12-inch guns on HMS Dreadnought, between 1907-1922
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  Helen Dinsmore Huntington
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  Joe Dawson, winning the 1912 Indianapolis 500
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  Nestorian (Assyrian) Christian family making butter in Mawana, Persia, date unknown
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  American actress Blanche Bates, dressed for a role in "The Fighting Hope"
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  Race car driver Bob Burman, 1911
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  Actress Lillian Gish, 1911
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  Bertha Wolf as Mary Magdalen, at the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1900
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  Actress Mildred Davis, 1921
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  Actress Pauline Frederick
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  Maria of Yugoslavia as a child, when she was Princess Marie of Romania
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  Actress Ruth St. Denis
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  Actress Viola Dana
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  Making of a death mask, 1908
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  Lucio Blanco and staff, c. 1913
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  Charles Lindbergh, c. 1927

  Media related to George Grantham Bain at Wikimedia Commons

• George Grantham Bain photograph archive at the Library of Congress
• George Grantham Bain photograph archive at Flickr
• George Grantham Bain at Library of Congress, with 328 library catalog records
• Bain News Service at LC Authorities, with 30,000 records