McCulloch Brothers Inc. Photographs

James Morrison (1870-1945) and William Patrick (1880-1971) McCulloch were born to Joseph and Janet (Thompson) McCulloch (ca. 1838-1898) in Glasgow, Scotland. They were two of nine children, including John McDonald (1862 July 12-), Janet McGregor (1864 May 19-), Henry Thompson (1866 April 29-), Joseph (1868-1961), Elizabeth (1872-1943), Margaret Alexander Smith (McCulloch) Morford (1874-1944), and Annie (ca. 1877-1900). According to their naturalization papers, the brothers landed in Philadelphia in May of 1887 on the Hibernian, apparently with their parents and youngest four siblings. The family settled at 908 Ridge Avenue in Darby, Pennsylvania. James and Will McCulloch were first exposed to photography in 1895 when Janet McCulloch purchased a camera at an auction sale. Both learned to use it and later took it with them to Arizona.

James McCulloch moved to Philadelphia in about 1899 and began managing a jewelery store located at 33 S. 8th Street. His brother Will joined him in the business between 1902 and 1905. Family legend holds that this enterprise was a Wainwright Jewelery Store franchise, but Philadelphia's city directories list James and Will McCulloch as independent jewelers and show no stores with names beginning in Wainwright Jewellers. The business is said to have burned in 1908, prompting the brothers' move to Arizona.

James McCulloch arrived in Phoenix on October 10, 1909 and formed a commercial photography business, McCulloch and Howard, with Percy Howard in 1913. In its announcement of the firm's formation, the Arizona Republican described McCulloch as one of Arizona's best known camera experts ... [whose] work has been seen in almost every magazine or booklet issued here since his coming and is much appreciated for its high quality. Howard left the firm in March of 1914 and McCulloch continued to operate as a commercial photographer at the firm's studio at 15 East Adams Street.

There are several accounts of how Will McCulloch came to Phoenix. According his own (likely apocryphal) tale, he was either relocating to Arizona for his health or travelling to California to visit a friend, Andrew Bauman, when he arrived in Phoenix in 1904. McCulloch stepped off the train and found himself in the midst of a group of citizens organizing to defend themselves against cowboys who had been terrorizing the town. He witnessed the ensuing shootout and, fascinated by the city and surrounding desert, decided to set up his photography studio in the area. A substantially more plausible story is the one summarized in his brother James' obituary: Will McCulloch arrived in Phoenix in January of 1908 after hearing reports of the Valley's glowing future, convinced his brother to join him in 1909, and worked in orchards and on ostrich farms until joining his brother in the photography business, which they renamed McCulloch Brothers Inc., in about 1919. Will McCulloch handled most of the photography while James McCulloch dealt with the firm's business concerns. The studio moved to 18 N. 2nd Avenue in 1921, where it operated for the next 25 years. After the deaths of his wife and brother, William McCulloch sold the business to Hobart Pribbenow (1918-1982) in 1946. Pribbenow operated under the McCulloch Bros. name until 1947, when he sold the business to a young photographer from Indiana named Herbert McLaughlin.

Two of the McCullochs' sisters, Elizabeth (known as Ebbie) and Margaret, joined them in Phoenix in about 1910. After McCulloch Brothers Inc. was formed, both worked in the studio hand-tinting photographs. Elizabeth McCulloch never married. Margaret McCulloch married Nathan Albert Morford (1844-1927) on April 27, 1916 in Phoenix's Trinity Cathedral. In her marriage announcement, she is described as a well known landscape artist. The couple had no children.

William McCulloch married Beatrice Livermore West (1889-1940) in Boston, Massachusetts on October 17, 1911. The couple lived at 1234 McKinley Avenue in Phoenix, where they raised four children: Janice P. Thompson (1915-1921), Jean Casson (McCulloch) Neathery (1923-1997), William Thompson (1925-2008), and Patricia Beatrice (McCulloch) Neathery (1930-2011). James McCulloch married Margaret Ferguson (1880-1961) in 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. The couple had no children.