Displacement

This week is my last at Tulane University Libraries' Southeastern Architectural Archive. I have taken a position as head of the Richard L. D. and Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections at Kansas State University.

In sorting through personal and professional files, I've come across a few things I had set aside to investigate later. Photographs of costumed ladies posed against painted backdrops, a flood-devastated western town, bright linens hanging outside a rustic lakeside cabin (above). I acquired all these images by digging through boxes at the Originals Mall of Antiques in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. None of them bore any textual identification, familial or geographic designations.

The Western Town

A series of three photographs documented some natural disaster, possibly a bad storm and/or flood. I had speculated the pictures were from the late 19-teens, but using a Peak Lupe 8x Model 2018, I could make out the following building markers:

Hotel Vail (below,  left)

Santa Fe / The Hub (below, center)

The Hotel Vail is still standing and is on the National Register, so identifying the locale as Pueblo, Colorado was fairly easy.

Not knowing anything about Pueblo's history, I used America's Historic Newspapers database and Denver Public Library's Digital Collections to confirm that the event was the June 3, 1921 flood. The unidentified photographer focused his/her lens on the the vicinity of the high water mark along Union Avenue. At its peak, the flood covered over 300 square miles.

The Photo Postcard Studio

A series of four real-photo postcards presented women dressed in costumes set against painted backdrops or decorative curtains. They seemed to be from the 1940s, and given the subject matter, most likely from the Great Plains. The photographer used EKC paper with undivided backs, but none of the versos bear anything more distinctive.

There is a Cultivator

And a Reaper

And Two Harvesters

And a Geisha

Yes, a geisha. With a cherry blossom kimono and a peacock-feathered fan.

In the last decade, there has been a growing interest in rural studio photography:

The John Michael Kohler Art Center's current exhibit Bringing to Light: The Massengill Family Photo Collection (through 17 January) features portraits produced in an Arkansas mobile studio. Many of the images are hand-colored close-up photographs; some can be viewed via Maxine Payne's 2004 Making Pictures: Three for a Dime.

Luc Sante's Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard (2009) addresses the proliferation of small-town photo postcards during the early twentieth century. Sante's interest in the format stemmed from a random encounter with a New York peddler over thirty years ago.

NEW! William Henry Jackson Finding Aid

With the assistance of Tulane University M.P.S. student Ahleah Boise, the Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of the William Henry Jackson Photochroms. This collection consists of over 300 color prints dating from 1898 to 1906.

Read more about the collection in the online finding aid here.

If you are unfamiliar with the Southeastern Architectural Archive's holdings, consult its list of "Finding Aids by Collection Name."

Frank Lotz Miller

We have mentioned the Crescent City's leading mid-century architectural photographer Frank Lotz Miller (1923-1993) in earlier posts, yet we always come across more of his wonderful images. As part of a series recording extant structures associated with a Central Business District parking garage complex designed by Curtis & Davis, Miller captured activities -- his own and the proprietor's -- at Frederick Tailors (158 South Rampart Street) on 23 December 1952.

Image above: Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Frederick Tailors. 23 December 1952. Curtis and Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952)

The Library of Congress is celebrating the 150th birthday of Frances Benjamin Johnston (shown above), born 15 January 1864. Her archive resides at LoC, and the Prints and Photographs Division has digitized a portion of her work. To view the digital gallery, click here.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive's new exhibit, "Bellocq and Beyond" features Johnston's undated photograph of 1133-1135 Chartres Street's courtyard. The exhibit will be up through 20 February 2014 in the SEAA's Reading Room, 300 Joseph Merrick Jones Hall on Tulane University's Uptown campus.

Image above:  Frances Benjamin Johnston, full-length self-portrait dressed as a man with false moustache, posed with bicycle. Circa 1880-1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. LC-DIG-ppmsc-04884 (digital file from original) LC-USZ62-83111.

In New Orleans, The Owl: The Organ of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, featured a cartoon deriding female cyclists:

Image above: "What We Are Coming To." The Owl: The Organ of the Young Men's Hebrew Association. 1890s. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Bellocq & Beyond

The Southeastern Architectural Archive has opened a new exhibit  -- Bellocq and Beyond -- on the occasion of the recent conservation of Ernest J. Bellocq’s photograph of The Real Estate Exchange Building (1913). Tulane University preservation librarian Annie Peterson stewarded the conservation, which was undertaken at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). 

The exhibit features architectural photographs by Bellocq, C. Milo Williams, George Mugnier, John Teunisson, Morgan Whitney, W.C. Odiorne, Frances B. Johnston, Eugene Delcroix, Richard Koch, Clarence John Laughlin, Walter Cook Keenan, Frank Lotz Miller & Betsy Swanson. 

It will be up through 20 February 2014 in the SEAA Reading Room, Joseph Merrick Jones Hall 300, Tulane University's Uptown Campus. Read Ryan Rivet's Tulane New Wave feature on the exhibit here.

Images above:  

Ernest J. Bellocq, Dr.  Invoice to Architect Martin Shepard. 1913.

Ernest J. Bellocq, photographer.  The Real Estate Exchange Building, 311 Baronne Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. 1913. [Detail]

Both from the Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans Architects & E.J. Bellocq II

A previous post mentioned New Orleans photographer Ernest J. Bellocq (1873-1949), who frequently worked for local architects to record their buildings and recreational activities. One such architect was Martin Shepard, for whom Bellocq photographed the Real Estate Exchange building (311 Baronne Street). Another was Thomas Sully, whose Allard Street and Calongne residences Bellocq documented.
The dapper young photographer appeared in the December 1896 issue of the Young Men's Hebrew Association publication, The Owl (image above).  As early as September 1892, he was a member of the New Orleans Camera Club and was noted for photographing bantamweight fighter Jack Skelly (1870-1953) preparing for his historic match with George Dixon (1870-1909) at the Olympic Club:

"[Skelly] looks the picture of health. His eyes reflect his feelings. They are bright, clear and quick. His skin is also perfect and his step at once firm and elastic. The aspirant for championship honors continued his training up to the eleventh hour. This morning, after enjoying a salt water bath, he was weighed and carried 117 pounds. He punched the ball for two hours, covered almost twenty miles, and then underwent the rubbing down process. While in that position Shelly [sic] was photographed by Mr. Ernest Bellocq, a prominent young member of the New Orleans Camera Club. This brought the bantam's training to a close. He will be brought to town to-morrow and will be permitted to attend the Myer-McAuliff fight."(1)

The September 6th Dixon-Skelly match marked the end of mixed-race fighting at the Olympic. My distant relative James J. Corbett (1866-1933) defeated John L. Sullivan (1858-1918) there on September 7th.


(1)"Champion John L. Sullivan Reaches New Orleans Yesterday And Shows Up in Fine Form." The Daily Picayune (5 September 1892): p. 4.

Images above:  Invoice. Ernest J. Bellocq, commercial photographer. 840 Conti Street. 1913. Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

"Ernest J. Bellocq." The Owl, Organ of the Young Men's Hebrew Association  (December 1896). Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Progress Photographs

For twentieth-century municipal, state and federal construction projects, progress photographs were often mandated. Generally commissioned of a professional photographer, these images typically document the building site prior to, during and after construction. Sometimes the series includes aerial photographs of the entire neighborhood. As such, they provide a significant amount of information to researchers regarding not only the building process, but also record alterations to the built environment as they happened.

The two photographs above document the upriver side of Canal Street in October 1936 and May 1957.

The first image, one in a series of 45 taken by photographer F.A. McDaniels, documents the old Charity Hospital buildings prior to their demolition. Patients line the seating areas along the right-hand side of the courtyard, the Knights of Pythias building and the Hibernia Bank building can be seen in the distance. The Pythian structure served as a temporary Charity Hospital for black patients for a two-year period between 1936 and 1938.

The second image, one in a series of  109 taken by Industrial Photos, records the construction of the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library. The Saratoga building and the Civic Center (former Knights of Pythias) building can be seen on the left, and City Hall and the Warwick Hotel can be seen on the right. Other photographs in the series record the construction of the Saratoga, City Hall, the State Supreme Court building and the 222 Loyola Avenue parking garage. Some reveal the removal of architectural ornamentation from the exterior of the old Pythian Temple Parisian Roof Garden.

First image:  F.A. McDaniels, photographer. Louisiana Charity Hospital Project. 10 October 1936. Weiss, Dreyfous & Seiferth Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Second:  Industrial Photos, 2430 Royal Street. New Orleans Public Library Main Branch. 31 May 1957. Curtis & Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mama Lou's 1961

In 1961, freelance artist  Florence Mars (1923-2006) spent time at Mama Lou's Camp, which was located on Lake Pontchartrain in Little Woods. The structure was significantly damaged by fire months after Mars shot this photograph.

During the late 1940s Mars worked in Atlanta, but her grandfather's death in 1950 prompted her to spend more time in New Orleans. She became associated with the Allison Art Colony in Way, Mississippi and her 1955 painting Trumpet Player was exhibited in the colony's inaugural show at the Delgado Museum, now the New Orleans Museum of Art. Mars took many  photographs of New Orleans musicians, buildings and parades.  Christiern Albertson hired Mars -- along with Ralston Crawford --  to take photographs for Riverside Records' "Living Legends" series.

Florence Mars donated a number of photographs to Tulane University Libraries, but the bulk of her image archive was given to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1982. Some of her jazz photographs may be consulted at Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive.

In the spring of 1947, the venue was advertised for sale as "Mamma Lou's."(1)

(1) Advertisement. The Times-Picayune 30 May 1947.


Photograph:  Florence Mars. Mama Lou's, Little Woods, New Orleans, LA. 1961. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.  This image is issued by the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the SEAA. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright.

Architectural Photography

New Orleans architectural photographer Frank Lotz Miller (1923-1993) maintained a prolific career photographing the city's architecture, food and festivals. Although born in Shreveport, his family moved to the Crescent City when he was a child. By the late 1950s, he was a regular contributor to Architectural Forum, Architectural Record and Progressive Architecture, frequently drawing comparisons to modernist architecture photographers Julius Shulman (1910-2009) and Ezra Stoller (1915-2004).

In the mid-1960s, Frank Lotz Miller wrote essays for The Louisiana Architect magazine. He used this forum to articulate the aims and principles of architectural photography, and to establish guidelines for architects hiring photographers:

"To truly appreciate architecture one must experience it first hand; be present in the space it encompasses, walk through and around it. The ideal is not always possible, but the best substitute, and I will be the first to admit its limitations, is photography."

"The photographer should not be asked to work on speculation. This is another reason why whenever possible the architect and the photographer should visit the site together."

To read more, see: "Photography and the Architect." The Louisiana Architect (May 1965): p. 10. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains Frank Lotz Miller photographs and negatives for the following architects/firms: James Lamantia, George Saunders, John Lawrence, and Curtis & Davis. To view a selection of digital reproductions, click here.

Image above: Frank Lotz Miller Advertisement. The Louisiana Architect (October 1964): p. 15.

Documenting the Gulf Coast

As reported by John Leland for The New York Times 2 June 2010:

MOBILE, Ala. — The beaches were still open; the restaurants were still serving shrimp. Fishermen were still casting for whiting off the white sandy shores. And ads on television still proclaimed the region open for business.

But as the oil slick made its way inexorably here toward the barrier islands at the mouth of Mobile Bay, with forecasts for a swath from Mississippi to the beaches of Pensacola, Fla., sometime this week, the mood was of the last days.

“You guys are our first line of defense,” Casi Callaway, executive director of Mobile Baykeeper , a preservation group, told about 50 volunteers gathered in a room filled to capacity. “Your job is to document what we have here that’s beautiful. BP will have to make it right.”

They had come to train as volunteer field observers, taking photographs and notes on the conditions of the shoreline before the oil arrived. Now, suddenly there was an urgency to their preparations. Over the weekend, isolated tar balls had washed ashore on nearby Dauphin Island, interrupting a busy beach holiday. “It’s starting,” Ms. Callaway said. “The first groups today took beautiful pictures of the western shore of Mobile Bay. But there are fish kills everywhere. One of our friends was on Dauphin Island when the tar ball washed up. Her 12-year-old daughter just started crying.”

Until a few days ago, some people here had hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that the winds and currents would move the oil away from Alabama’s coastal islands, where fishing and tourism dominate the local economy.

“I had townspeople calling me and saying it’s not coming here,” said Grace Tyson, who runs Tyson Realty on Dauphin Island, shaking her head. “It’s like with the hurricanes. They’re predicted but then they don’t arrive. People said, ‘Take my condo off the market.’ ”

Business is down by more than 75 percent, she said. And with the latest forecast, she added, “I’d say closer to one hundred.”

The area had gotten a few tar balls in early May but no steady flow. Beaches filled for the Memorial Day weekend.

On the coastal island of Gulf Shores, some residents who had seen tar balls near their property said that their neighbors had told them not to talk about it. Ms. Callaway said that after she had appeared on television to talk about the tar balls on Dauphin Island, she, too, had received angry responses from locals. “I had people telling me, thanks a lot, you killed our tourist season.”

Then, on the eve of the opening of red snapper season, a major event here, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expanded the boundaries of federal waters closed to fishing and the state department of public health closed the oyster beds.

“We have teams in place to clean up all that’s coming in,” said Jeff Collier, the mayor of Dauphin Island. “But this is foreign to us. I worry about our ability to keep on keeping on. I like to think that we will get less than New Orleans, but who knows? It could get that bad.”

Fishermen and businesses have already put in claims with BP and the state for lost revenue, though the big losses are still to come, said Jeanine Stewart, an owner of Burris’ Farmers Market in Loxley, where sales “bottomed out” almost immediately after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, but had crept back up since.

“The big thing businesses want to talk about is government supplements or BP claims,” Ms. Stewart said. “They’ve advised all of us to file claims.”

At the market, the television is turned to news, and Ms. Stewart calls people in to watch whenever there is an update on the spill. “It’s that much on our minds,” she said. “We’re still lying in wait. We still have that hope.”

But for Betty Edwards, that hope was dwindling. Mrs. Edwards and her husband have owned homes on Dauphin Island since 1978, and returned even after two were destroyed by Hurricane Frederick and Hurricane Katrina. She said she was still eating local seafood five days a week. “Everyone’s really scared,” she said.

“My mother is sick and I should be with her,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m going to stay here until it’s all closed.’ It could a couple days. But it’s when, not if.”

At the training session for volunteer field observers, Jon DeJean said she felt helpless, in part because she felt BP and government agencies were not telling the whole truth about the spill. “I was angry from the start,” Ms. DeJean said, “but the frustration is growing. For weeks I’ve been feeling powerless and helpless. I feel coming here is at least a step in the right direction. It gives me the feeling of doing something.”

But Tim Helland, a kayak fisherman, acknowledged that there was not much the observers — or anyone — could do.

“We’re going to patrol the beaches, and we’ll know exactly when it comes,” he said. “But it’s still coming. I’m 62. I may not be fishing where I fish ever again.”

Advance Notice: Visual Acoustics

The 20th annual New Orleans Film Festival schedule will be announced on September 16th, but we have advance notice that its line-up will include the Eric Bricker documentary, Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman.

Julius Shulman (1910-2009) was a leading architectural photographer who remained active until his death this past summer. His imagery idealized the southern California lifestyle and the modernist architecture of Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Lloyd Wright. His personal archive of some 1/4 million items is currently being processed at the Getty.

To read more about his work, check out...... Tulane University Libraries:

Architecture and Its Photography/Julius Shulman. Koln and New York, 1998

Kaplan, Sam Hall. LA Lost and Found: An Architectural History of Los Angeles. New York, 1987.

Serraino, Pierluigi. Modernism Rediscovered. Koln, 2000.

Shulman, Julius. Photographing Architecture and Interiors. New York, 1962.

Stern, Michael and Alan Hess. Julius Shulman: Palm Springs. New York, 2008.

NOW AVAILABLE in the Tulane School of Architecture Library:

Julius Shulman, Architecture Rediscovered. 3 vols., Taschen, 2007. NA712.5.I57 S58

Pulp Settings

American photographer Thomas Allen utilizes 1940's and 1950's pulp fiction to create pop-up dioramas that he photographs with a 4 x 5 camera. The worn paperbacks frequently become the architectural elements populated by his gunmen, ingenues and snarling animals.

Image above: Thomas Allen, The Stranger, chromogenic print, 2005. 20 x 24 in.