Frank Hamilton Taylor was born in Rochester, NY on April 21, 1846. In 1865 he came to Philadelphia to serve an internship at a lithography firm. Taylor chose Philadelphia because of its strong publishing industry and vibrant art community. By 1870 he had established his own lithography firm, and was serving as a special artist for various newspapers and publications in the city. Additionally, Taylor collaborated on many guidebooks and wrote several publications, most notably Philadelphia in the Civil War, and the Official Office Building Directory and Architectural handbook of Philadelphia. Taylor entered semi-retirement in 1910 to focus on a series of watercolors, washes and drawings of Philadelphia. He eventually published these images as Ever-Changing Philadelphia in 1915. He was a graduate of Haverford College, he was a member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club and exhibited at the Boston Art Club. Works by Taylor are in the collection of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. By 1927 Taylor’s health had begun to decline to the point where the Court of Pleas of Philadelphia declared him “an alleged weak-minded person” hand had him placed under the guardianship of the Commonwealth Title Insurance Company. He died two months later.