Stanley J. Morrow was born in Richland County, Ohio, on May 3, 1843, and moved to Wisconsin early in his childhood. In 1861, he joined the 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry as a drummer. Morrow was then transferred into the Veteran Reserve and was stationed at Point Lookout Prison in Maryland as an assistant to renowned Civil War photographer Matthew B. Brady. Brady instructed Morrow in photography and the wet plate process, which Morrow used throughout his career. In 1864 produced stereo views of Ft. Lookout and other scenes under Brady’s imprint.
After leaving the war, Morrow married Isa Ketchum. In 1868 the couple moved to Yankton, Dakota Territory where for over fifteen years used the booming city as his base. Morrow established a photography gallery there and taught Isa the photographic process. When Morrow was away, Isa ran the gallery to fund his photographic expeditions. As he traveled he set up a number of satellite studios throughout the Dakota and Montana area including Miles City, Montana.
In 1876, Stanley Morrow met soldiers returning from General George A. Crook’s expedition in pursuit of the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. Morrow photographed soldiers reenacting scenes from the starvation march back to the Black Hills and from the Battle of Slim Buttes, and photographed Sioux warriors captured in battle.
Morrow became post photographer at Fort Keogh in 1878 and later that year opened a gallery at Fort Custer. In April 1879, while working as photographer at Fort Custer, he accompanied Captain George K. Sanderson and a company of the 11th Infantry on an expedition to Little Bighorn Battlefield to clear the field of animal bones and remark the graves of fallen soldiers.
Stanley Morrow returned to Yankton in 1880, photographing local events including the Great Flood of 1881.When Isa fell ill in 1882, the couple moved to Florida. Stanley J. Morrow died in Dallas, Texas, on December 10, 1921.
Stanley Julius Morrow's primary format was the stereoptican view, but he made ambrotypes, carte de visites, and cabinet views of Indians such as Standing Bear, Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, early photographs of the Little Bighorn including the burial of the bones, with Gen. Crook in the Black Hills in 1876, steamboats, Indian life, and many other western views. Using wet plate negatives he nevertheless was able to produce remarkable documentary images of the West.