The Past in Focus: Whatcom Museum Preserves Life’s Work of Several Local Photographers

Pictures—moments in time, perpetually frozen with a shutter click on—usually carry the previous to life in methods phrases can’t. Visible information of historical past are nostalgic to some, fascinating to most, and a pivotal a part of Bellingham’s Whatcom Museum. 

The museum’s photograph archives maintain greater than 200,000 gadgets, together with collections from a number of prolific photographers whose native work accounts for tens of 1000’s of pictures. The preserving and organizing of those photographs present a useful useful resource for anybody desirous to glimpse our space’s previous. 

J.W. Sandison

Lots of Bellingham’s now-iconic early 1900s pictures had been captured by James Wilbur Sandison. 

Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1873, Sandison moved west in 1899 to pursue business images. After stints in Vancouver B.C., California and Hawaii, Sandison arrived in Bellingham in 1904. His earliest work used 6-by-8-inch glass plate negatives earlier than a swap to movie.

November 1921: This photograph of a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest is Sandison’s most well-known, showing in books, magazines and documentaries. The competition was organized by the Liberty Theatre’s supervisor to advertise Chaplin’s movie “The Idle Class.” Taken within the entrance of the theatre at 132 West. Holly Avenue, it’s the solely photograph Sandison took of the competition. J. W. Sandison photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

One in every of Sandison’s necessary contributions was capturing the primary aerial pictures of Bellingham in 1912. The photographs had been taken from a sizzling air balloon, and it will be one other 16 years earlier than anybody else captured town from the air.

Through the 1910s and ’20s, Sandison was a contract photographer for the Bellingham Herald and different information periodicals. His photographs had been additionally featured in native college yearbooks. In 1931, he obtained nationwide consideration from American Photographer journal for pictures of a northern Whatcom County limestone quarry.

In 1947, Sandison suffered a serious setback throughout a 7,000-mile street journey to the East Coast along with his spouse. With nobody watching his Bellingham studio, thieves broke in and stole greater than $1,000 price of cameras and tools (almost $12,000 as we speak). After his spouse died later that yr, Sandison centered totally on studio and portrait images at his Holly Avenue studio. He by no means retired, dying on the studio in 1962 at age 89.

Whatcom Museum archivist Jeff Jewell says that as a result of his offspring had little interest in retaining his father’s work, all Sandison’s photographs had been left to his considerably overwhelmed studio assistant. The museum stepped in to buy about 7,500 negatives courting from World Warfare II and earlier, however handed on negatives from the Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties as a result of they had been too current. Lots of these negatives and prints had been both taken by people who wished them, or just thrown away.

When Jewell started working on the photograph archives within the Nineteen Nineties, he acquired 4 smaller, personal collections of Sandison’s work, pushing the museum’s assortment to round 10,000 unique pictures. 

Darius and Tabitha Kinsey

Darius Kinsey is world-renowned for his pictures of early Northwest logging and locomotives.

This picture of a Washington bolt cutter, posing along with his two daughters on an enormous tree, was taken in 1905. Kinsey was an in-demand photographer for capturing early Northwest logging scenes. Darius Kinsey photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

Born in Missouri in 1869, he got here west at age 20 and settled in Snoqualmie, Washington. Kinsey purchased his first digicam a yr later, took digicam classes from a girl in Seattle, and shortly after started a profession in images.

In 1894, he met Tabitha Pritts in Nooksack whereas working as a photographer in Whatcom and Skagit Counties, marrying her two years later. Whereas Kinsey’s brother Clark went north to seize the Klondike gold rush, Darius and his spouse constructed a Sedro-Woolley residence that doubled as a portrait studio. Darius took the photographs, whereas his spouse helped develop negatives and make prints.

In 1906, they moved to Seattle and deserted studio work, focusing solely on logging and scenic photographs. Typically employed by the businesses whose operations he documented, Kinsey lined all phases of logging, from a tree’s first reduce to its transformation into lumber. Many prints had been despatched again to logging camps so loggers might purchase the pictures during which they appeared.

In some unspecified time in the future, Clark returned from Alaska and the 2 brothers had been unable or unwilling to work collectively. Clark took logging territory south of Seattle, whereas Darius claimed territory to the north. Darius retired from images in 1940 after being injured in a fall from a tree stump. He died 5 years later. Each Darius and Tabitha are buried in Nooksack.

Kinsey poses along with his tools in 1920. Of the 5 cameras on this image, two of them featured negatives sized 11 inches by 14 inches or bigger. Darius Kinsey photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

After his dying, Tabitha bought his photographs to a Seattle resident, the place they stayed for 25 years earlier than David Bohn and Rodolfo Petchek purchased them, utilizing the photographs as a part of a two-volume e-book about Kinsey revealed in 1975. Mixed with a travelling exhibition of his work that debuted in Oakland across the identical time, curiosity in Kinsey’s work tremendously elevated.

A lot so, in actual fact, that Bohn and Petchek had been as soon as provided greater than $1 million by promoting businesses hoping to change his photographs for product placement. The lads declined.  Through the years, Kinsey’s work has been revealed in books, used as cowl artwork for novels, and exhibited world wide. Whatcom Museum purchased the Kinsey assortment in 1979. It consists of greater than 7,000 unique pictures.

Kinsey typically took dangers to seize the right shot—together with dodging avalanches, crossing crevasses and stepping previous rattlesnakes. However he normally bought what he was searching for. 

“He by no means noticed himself as an artist,” Jewell says of Kinsey. “I feel he’d admire that folks as we speak admire his compositional abilities.”

Bert Huntoon

Born in California in 1870, Huntoon is liable for traditional pictures of Chuckanut Drive, the Mount Baker Lodge, and different scenic Whatcom County areas. Working as an engineer, Huntoon first visited Whatcom County in July 1894 as an official of the Washington State Roads Fee. Tasked with discovering the very best route for a “Cascade State Wagon Highway,” Huntoon and one other man hiked alongside the Nooksack and Baker Rivers carrying 66-pound packs. Finally, the boys summited Mount Baker. Huntoon, armed with a Kodak digicam, documented the month-long journey. 

Huntoon was particularly within the creation and promotion of Chuckanut Drive as a method to carry vacationers to Bellingham. Word the interurban railroad trestle to the proper on this undated picture. Bert Huntoon photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

Huntoon turn out to be a county engineer within the Eighteen Nineties earlier than starting a 45-year profession with Pacific American Fisheries in 1899. Outdoors his employment, he helped type the Mount Baker Membership in 1911—a corporation whose mission was to carry recognition and tourism to the area. As normal supervisor of Mount Baker Improvement Firm within the Nineteen Twenties, he was essential within the development of the Mount Baker Freeway, Mount Baker Lodge and a park that’s now a part of Sehome Hill Arboretum. 

Huntoon was particularly passionate in regards to the constructing of Chuckanut Drive, and labored to have it included within the state freeway system. By means of all of his skilled endeavors, Huntoon remained a faithful beginner photographer, usually submitting his finest pictures to publications that would assist promote simply how particular Whatcom County was. 

After his dying in 1947, his photographs had been preserved by good pal and historian Galen Biery, who finally gave them to the museum. Right this moment, round 5,000 unique Huntoon pictures reside there. 

Jack Carver 

The latest photographer to have a considerable assortment on the museum, Jack Carver was a lifelong Bellingham resident who served as a Bellingham Herald photographer from 1945 to 1981. At instances, in actual fact, he was the paper’s solely photographer.

Former First Woman Eleanor Roosevelt visited Bellingham in January 1956 for talking occasions and the christening of four-month-old Corridor Randolph Walker. Roosevelt was the child’s godmother. This photograph was taken at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and required Carver to make use of an intensely brilliant flash through the baptism. Jack Carver photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

The son of the Herald’s managing editor, Jack Carver started his journalism profession as a paperboy in 1929. His images curiosity started throughout Military Air Corp service in England throughout WWII, when he used a Kodak Brownie digicam and despatched residence rolls of movie. 

After the conflict, he started in earnest on the Herald as a full-time photographer, capturing neighborhood occasions, breaking information, sports activities and all method of day by day Whatcom County life. In 1995, he donated his huge assortment of pictures to the museum, and over the following 17 years helped Jewell catalog his photographs with weekly visits to the archives. There are such a lot of Carver pictures, in actual fact, that the museum has cataloged 54,000 of them and nonetheless isn’t completed.

Not like lots of Sandison’s photographs, which required detective work as a result of they usually lacked dates or descriptions, Carver’s usually had all the required information. And if one didn’t, Carver might normally determine it out from reminiscence.

Jack Carver captured this airplane crash in Lynden on the morning of September 28, 1964.The airplane’s carburetor froze on takeoff, inflicting it to crash land within the entrance yard of the Jones household at 8661 Benson Highway. Not one of the airplane’s 4 occupants suffered life-threatening accidents. Jack Carver photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum

“He knew everyone,” Jewell says. “He had such entry. Jack was all over the place, and everyone knew him. I miss him so, a lot.”

Carver died in 2013 at age 95. Lots of his photographs stay nostalgic to long-time residents, a few of whom keep in mind final days of faculty, snow day sledding, the world’s tallest Christmas tree or visits from well-known people like Lyndon B. Johnson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Carver’s pictures could also be dated, however lots of the parts they seize are timeless. 

A Lasting Legacy

Right this moment, the photograph archives proceed to function a useful useful resource to a variety of individuals. 

Along with historic and private analysis for writers, academics, college students and on a regular basis people, the archives have helped many native banks, eating places, espresso outlets and dental places of work adorn their public areas with historic prints. 

“It anchors a neighborhood in time and simply offers it a sure depth I feel we’d be lacking if we didn’t have these,” Jewell says of publicly displaying previous photographs. 

Many pictures have additionally been licensed to be used in books and different media; the museum has even helped Ken Burns, whose manufacturing firm requested Kinsey photographs for a number of of Burns’ acclaimed collection, together with “The West” and “Prohibition.”

Jewell considers cataloging and preserving these historic pictures an excellent accountability, in addition to a approach of sustaining the photographers’ legacies. 

“With out the photographers, none of this is able to exist,” he says. “We cross by this mortal coil, however there’s a reminder that we had been as soon as right here.” 

The Whatcom Museum Picture Archives are usually open Wednesday by Friday from 1:00 p.m. to five:00 p.m. Verify for any COVID-19 restrictions earlier than making an attempt to go to.

• Bert Huntoon captured this scene of parents enjoying miniature golf on the grounds of the Mount Baker Lodge in 1930. Bert Huntoon photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Sandison captured this spectacular photograph of downtown Bellingham from Sehome Hill in 1929. J. W. Sandison photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Sedro-Woolley Excessive College’s Gary Moon wins a excessive hurdle occasion throughout an April 1957 observe meet. His teammate, Jeff Heverling, stumbled into the ultimate hurdle however wasn’t injured. Capturing motion pictures with a 4×5 graphic digicam—which didn’t shoot constantly—required a mixture of luck and ability in these days. Jack Carver photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• The Kinseys ran a portrait studio from their residence in Sedro-Woolley for a number of years. Darius took photographs, whereas his spouse developed negatives and made prints. Darius Kinsey photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• November 1921: This photograph of a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest is Sandison’s most well-known, showing in books, magazines and documentaries. The competition was organized by the Liberty Theatre’s supervisor to advertise Chaplin’s movie “The Idle Class.” Taken within the entrance of the theatre at 132 West. Holly Avenue, it’s the solely photograph Sandison took of the competition. J. W. Sandison photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Jack Carver captured this airplane crash in Lynden on the morning of September 28, 1964.The airplane’s carburetor froze on takeoff, inflicting it to crash land within the entrance yard of the Jones household at 8661 Benson Highway. Not one of the airplane’s 4 occupants suffered life-threatening accidents. Jack Carver photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Huntoon was particularly within the creation and promotion of Chuckanut Drive as a method to carry vacationers to Bellingham. Word the interurban railroad trestle to the proper on this undated picture. Bert Huntoon photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Kinsey poses along with his tools in 1920. Of the 5 cameras on this image, two of them featured negatives sized 11 inches by 14 inches or bigger. Darius Kinsey photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• This picture of a Washington bolt cutter, posing along with his two daughters on an enormous tree, was taken in 1905. Kinsey was an in-demand photographer for capturing early Northwest logging scenes. Darius Kinsey photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum
• Former First Woman Eleanor Roosevelt visited Bellingham in January 1956 for talking occasions and the christening of four-month-old Corridor Randolph Walker. Roosevelt was the child’s godmother. This photograph was taken at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and required Carver to make use of an intensely brilliant flash through the baptism. Jack Carver photograph courtesy of Whatcom Museum