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About Us Photographer W. J. Root got a boost from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. His fledgling company took souvenir photographs and actually won a medal on the midway. Root's first studio was in the Kimball Building at 243 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago. His son, Preston, joined the business and in 1909 Root incorporated, claiming a corporate worth of $1,000. Over the years the studio prospered, taking weddings photos, graduation portraits and pictures of naked babies on bearskin rugs. Eventually, the Roots sold the business to a family named Roche. And in 1955, Mrs. Anna Roche-Samelt and her brother, John Roche, sold the business to the Dompke family. Back in 1947, Norbert Dompke and three other men had put up $1,500 each and started a little magazine called TV Forecast. It was a natural--television was on the rise, Chicago was at the center of the nation, and what could be handier than a little booklet listing what's on the telly in the upcoming week? In 1953, publisher Walter Annenberg bought TV Forecast for $750,000, thus solidifying his TV Guide's national distribution. Norbert Dompke's share of the take was $150,000. He was in the chips, as they say, and looking for a new business to buy. A banker friend tipped him off to Root, which grossed $65,000 in 1955. Dompke bought it, studied it, dropped certain aspects of the business that were either not profitable or clogged with competitors (such as wedding photography and baby pictures), and concentrated on building the school photography business. Today, Root Studios is part of HR Imaging Partners, Inc., a collaboration of photography branches that cover the wide array of America's photography needs, including school, senior, sports, and studio photography. Please visit our corporate website at http://www.HRImaging.com. We take customer privacy very seriously, please click HERE to view our Privacy Policy. |