Posts Tagged photographs
Here’s a quick story from the somewhat strange, but definitely true, files of a Collections Specialist, Cataloger, at The Henry Ford.
Recently, I was cataloging some photographs in our collection from the original site of the Susquehanna Plantation. This white house with a deep porch, now located in Greenfield Village, was originally located in the tidewater region of Maryland.
Susquehanna Plantation in Greenfield Village. / THF2024
Some of our photos of the house when it still stood at its original site came from families who lived near the plantation. There are two photographs that include a woman with a rather unique name. She was born Rose Etta Dement in 1902 in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. When she married George Leonard Stone in 1919 or 1920, her name became Rose Etta Stone.
Edward "Buster" Pussler, Malcolm Morris, Rosalie Pussler, Earl Stone, Wilhelmina Morris, Rose Stone, Helen Morris, and Mary Ruth Stone Woodburn Posing on a Truck, 1934. Here, Rose is pictured third from the left, sitting in the truck. / THF249737
Margaret Jones Dement, Agnes Ward, Elizabeth Russell, Viola Russell, and Rose Stone Standing in Front of the Susquehanna House, 1936. Rose is on the far left. / THF249739
When I was cataloging these two photos and doing some research on the people on Ancestry.com, it amused me to come across such a name. Obviously, the Rosetta Stone language learning software was far from existence in the mid-1930s when these photos were taken. It is possible this family knew of the actual artifact called the Rosetta Stone, which helped archaeologists decipher ancient languages, and got a nice little laugh when Rose Etta Dement married George Stone.
You never know what quirky treasures you’ll find among the digitized artifacts at The Henry Ford. Check them out for yourself here.
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Maryland, research, photographs, Greenfield Village buildings, digitization, digital collections, by Shannon Rossi, 20th century, #digitization100K, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
When Jenny Chandler photographed these Brooklyn children playing games about 1900, she also unwittingly provided us with a “cameo” image of herself. The photograph includes her shadow, slightly bent over her camera as she takes the shot. THF 38025
In 1890, 25-year-old Jenny Young Chandler suddenly found herself a widow with a two-month-old baby to provide for. This heart-rending personal loss would take her on an unexpected path--one as a photojournalist and feature writer for the New York Herald, capturing life in Brooklyn, New York and vicinity. Over the next three decades, Chandler’s sensitive, insightful photography would depict people from all walks of life and the world in which they lived--a legacy preserved in over 800 glass plate negatives.
Jenny Chandler was born in 1865 in New Jersey to William Young and Mary Lewis Young. An only child, Jenny was raised by her father and stepmother, Sarah Bennett Young. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when Jenny was six, so her father could work as the city editor for the New York Sun newspaper. Jenny followed the normal “career path” for a young lady at that time, marrying William G. Chandler on April 25, 1888. The groom, a neighbor, worked as a sales representative for a picture frame manufacturer. Jenny and William welcomed a son, William Young Chandler, on October 12, 1890. Two months later, Jenny’s husband died of typhoid fever. Chandler unexpectedly needed to earn a living for herself and her child.
When Jenny Chandler embarked on her career, photographs were made by lugging a heavy camera, glass plate negatives and tripod. Understanding how the photo chemicals worked and how light and camera lenses interacted proved to be an exacting task. While photography was growing in popularity as a hobby for young women whose families could afford the equipment, as a profession, it was still considered a male domain. Yet Jenny Chandler mastered the technical details of camera and chemicals, then used her sensitivity and insight as a professional photojournalist to create evocative images of the world around her.
Jenny Chandler’s photographs have an immediacy—a “you are there” quality. She had a remarkable talent for portraying on film the lives of people of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. Chandler captured well-off Brooklyn girls and boys playing games, the exuberance of families enjoying the beach at Coney Island, the well-mannered curiosity of students on a museum visit, young girls bent over their sewing tasks, scruffy boys hanging out at the beach, children gathering tomatoes, a fisherman mending his net, shipwrights making wooden boats, and Norwegian immigrant women laboring at their farm work.
In 1922, at the age of 56, Jenny Young Chandler died of a heart ailment. For nearly 10 years, her photographic legacy quietly remained in her Brooklyn home. The subsequent owner of the house, Betty R.K. Pierce--recognizing its importance--contacted Henry Ford hoping “to have Mrs. Chandler’s work preserved in some way.” Mrs. Pierce had read about Henry Ford’s museum and historical village, and thought the photographs particularly related to Ford’s collections. In May 1932, five large boxes containing the carefully packed 800 glass negatives were on their way to Dearborn.
The result of this donation is an amazing document of early 20th century life.
Cynthia Read Miller, former curator, photography & prints, and Jeanine Head Miller, curator of domestic life at The Henry Ford.
Brooklyn and its environs offered Jenny Chandler a varied palette of urban and rural scenes, wealthy and impoverished people, and daily work life and leisure experiences. Below are a few selections from her remarkable collection of photographs.
Coney Island’s beaches and amusement parks offered cooling breezes and leisure opportunities to New York City area residents. THF38292
Girls learn to cook at a trade school. THF38041
Girls visit a children’s museum in Brooklyn, 1900-1910. THF38128
A family enjoys an outing in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, about 1905. THF 38192
A photograph of residents in their backyard - a rare “behind the scenes” glimpse of everyday life. THF38085
Clearing streets of snow. THF38073
“Tomboy of Darby Patch, Nellie punching bag.” In “The Patch,” a down-at-the-heels part of Brooklyn, the majority of residents were working class Irish immigrants. THF38251
A gypsy family enjoys an outdoor meal. THF241184
Boat Builders, New York, 1890-1915. THF38018
Children in front of a Gowanus Canal house, Brooklyn, New York. Gowanus Canal was a busy - and polluted - domestic shipping canal. THF38009
Gathering radishes in Ridgewood. Ridgewood - a neighborhood that straddled the Queens/Brooklyn boundary - remained largely rural until about 1900. Buildings in the background attest to the increasing urbanization of the area. THF38392
Norwegian immigrant women laboring at their farm work, about 1900. THF38397
It was so difficult to choose only a few of Jenny Chandler’s photographs! You can enjoy hundreds more of her images in our digital collections.
20th century, 19th century, New York, communication, women's history, photography, photographs, by Jeanine Head Miller, by Cynthia Read Miller
The Henry Ford was recently recognized by WXYZ as one of the most Instagrammable spots in metro Detroit. If you’re always striving for that perfect Instagram post, here are a few tips and tricks I’ve learned in the Photography Studio at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
First, composition is key. Make sure to take a look around you as you compose your shot—what do you want to include? Sometimes an interesting angle, or an object in the foreground, can change your picture drastically. Make sure to walk around a bit before you snap your shot, or take multiples, and see which one you like best.
Take, for instance, this image I took of the water tower. By keeping it in the background, and other things in the foreground, it changes the photo to a view you might not see right away.
Similarly, going for a different angle can make for an interesting photo, especially when it’s something like Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park lab. Most people see its profile while walking by, and don’t look back when they’re exiting, but just seeing it from another perspective makes it look like an entirely different building.
Another thing to keep in mind is lighting, especially if you’re outside in Greenfield Village. On a sunny day, you want to make sure the sun is at your back, and if you’re taking photos of people, make sure it’s not in their eyes. On a gloomy day, always make sure to play around with the saturation and brightness/contrast before you post your picture. These little things can go a long way and can turn the grayest of photos a bit more vibrant!
An overcast day at the Roundhouse can still have a pop of color.
For larger subjects, it comes back to angles. If you’re having a hard time fitting everything in the frame, take a couple steps back, or turn your focus to the details. Sometimes the most interesting photos come from looking at something a little more closely.
And finally, lighting and exposure are important things to take into account when you’re going for the perfect shot. Though cell phones don’t allow as much control over exposure as cameras do, there’s still a lot that can be done. Take, for instance, these photos of the McDonald’s sign over by Lamy’s. By adjusting the exposure, we get a much more dynamic photo.
Hopefully some of these tips will help you out the next time you’re wandering about the museum or village. What’s your favorite place to take photos here at The Henry Ford? Show us! Use #THFPhoto and show off your work.
Jillian Ferraiuolo is Digital Imaging Specialist at The Henry Ford.
Michigan, Dearborn, photography, photographs, Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, by Jillian Ferraiuolo
Many people know Steve McQueen as an actor in such popular 1960s and 1970s films as The Great Escape, Bullitt, and The Thomas Crown Affair. But McQueen was also a racecar enthusiast, to the point where he once reportedly said, "I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or a racer who acts.”
To help shed some light on this issue, we’ve just digitized nearly a dozen photos of McQueen visiting designer Carroll Shelby’s Shelby-American shop in Venice, California, in 1963, including this image of both men at the shop.
Visit our Digital Collections to see more images from McQueen’s visit, as well as tens of thousands more artifacts from our vast racing collections. Or, if you’re more interested in McQueen’s acting, check out our 1974 movie poster for The Towering Inferno.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
20th century, 1960s, California, race car drivers, racing, photographs, digital collections, cars, by Ellice Engdahl, actors and acting
We continue to digitize one of the highlights of our vast auto racing collections, the Dave Friedman collection of photos. Over the course of 2016, we added 2,330 new items from this collection to our online holdings, bringing the total digitized from the Friedman collection to almost 21,000 images.
While these images capture the drama and the spectacle of car racing in the 1960s, nearly nine out of ten of those we’ve digitized thus far are black-and-white photos. However, we’ve just digitized a set of several dozen color images from the 1960 United States Grand Prix at Riverside, including this shot where you can enjoy the vivid red noses of the cars.
See more pics from the same race, or browse all our digitized color images from the Dave Friedman collection in our Digital Collections.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
California, cars, race cars, 20th century, 1960s, racing, photographs, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
If you know a bit about The Henry Ford, you probably know that one of our areas of expertise is automobile racing. Along with many artifacts, we hold vast amounts of archival materials on the topic, including the Dave Friedman Collection of hundreds of thousands of racing images, among other materials. We’ve just digitized a grouping of nearly 500 images from the 1968 American Road Race of Champions (ARRC) held at Riverside, California—bringing the total number of images we’ve digitized from this collection to over 20,000.
Visit our Digital Collections to see this dramatic 1968 ARRC shot—or browse all the digitized images from the Dave Friedman Collection.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
We continue to work on our IMLS-grant funded project to conserve, catalog, photograph, rehouse, and digitize 900 artifacts from our electrical distribution equipment collection. A number of the meters and other artifacts we’ve turned up during that project were created by the Fort Wayne Electric Works (also known as the Fort Wayne Electric Corporation), an Indiana company that manufactured electrical equipment and other items in the late 19th century. To accompany the artifacts, we’ve just digitized photographs from our Fort Wayne Electric Works archival collection, which show various parts of the factory around 1894—including this shot of the testing and calibrating laboratory.
Connect our Fort Wayne artifacts with our Fort Wayne photographs for yourself by visiting our Digital Collections.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Additional Readings:
- 1899 Locomobile Runabout: Freedom on Wheels
- Maudslay Production Lathe, circa 1800
- Gas-Steam Engine, 1916, Used to Generate Electricity at Highland Park Plant
- Surprising Stories from IMLS Discoveries
Indiana, 19th century, power, photographs, manufacturing, IMLS grant, electricity, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl, archives
The Ford GT40 race car celebrates some big anniversaries this year and next. In 1966, GT40s finished 1-2-3 at the French endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 1967, the Ford Mark IV now on display at The Henry Ford won an all-American victory at the same race, driven by Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt. In honor of these milestones, we’ve just digitized about 800 color images from the Dave Friedman Collection showing races where GT40s competed, including this lineup from the 24 Hours of Daytona race in February, 1969. Visit our Digital Collections to browse the images by race, including the 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969 12 Hours of Sebring; the 1966 and 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans; and the 1967, 1968, and 1969 24 Hours of Daytona—and if you want even more GT40, check out the video we just produced telling the dramatic story of our Mark IV and its fabled 1967 win.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Cunningham Drugs, Detroit, Michigan, 1976. THF 239803
It is with great sadness that we hear of the passing of John Margolies.
Elwood Bar, Detroit, Michigan, 1986. THF 239044
John was motivated the same way many photographers with a deep appreciation for history are: he wanted to capture things that had become overlooked, structures that were endangered, vulnerable, and on the brink of destruction. But rather than choosing a neighborhood, or town or region he chose what could be found along the edges of all the old roads, the pre-interstate routes stretched throughout the United States—like a local historian of endless highways. His finest images look like stills from a perfect road movie, and they capture an element of the nation’s essence and identity—mom and pop businesses, motels, diners, crazy signage and attractions, clamoring for the attention of motorists, played out against distance and motion.
A large selection of John’s photographic slides were acquired by The Henry Ford in 2013; John also donated a great many roadside-related souvenirs and other items.
The museum’s exhibit Roadside America: Through the Lens of John Margolies ran from June 2015 to January 2016. Continue Reading
roads and road trips, popular culture, Roadside America, John Margolies, photography, photographs, in memoriam, by Marc Greuther
May 29, 2016, will mark the 100th running of the iconic Indianapolis 500 auto race. The Henry Ford Archive of American Innovation contains many objects and archival materials related to the race over its long history, and we’ve just digitized more than 1,600 images from the 1964 race, as well as 500 images of the 1961 race. Both sets of images come from the extensive Dave Friedman collection, and join previously digitized sets of Indy images from 1962, 1963, 1968, and 1969. Each set of images covers both vivid racetrack action and behind-the-scenes shots, like this relatively serene 1964 shot taken from above.
If you’re a racing fan, visit our digital collections to peruse more than 7400 photos, documents, and objects related to the Indy 500.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
photographs, Indy 500, by Ellice Engdahl, racing, race cars, digital collections
