Project #Archive 30, April 2022
This post is a collection of @OakBayArchives tweets for #Archive30, an annual outreach initiative from the Archives & Records Association of Scotland for which archivists and archive workers and volunteers post features from their collections in response to daily prompts. An advantage of repeating the tweets in blog post form is that the text for each photo is not limited to 280 characters, allowing for expansion of abbreviations and more information where available.
Time for the annual round of #Archive30 themed tweets! This year I'll focus on a current project, digitization and cataloguing of Bert Howell's photos (OBA PR 198). Day 1 #YourArchive, the Howell collection as laid out soon after arrival in the archives in 2017 by @_cmduncan, showing several different negative & positive photo formats. And yes, gloves are generally required for handling photographic media, though I'm using nitrile rather than the stereotypical white cotton.
Clean dry hands are usually preferable to any kind of gloves for handling documents on paper of parchment, but photographic media are often chemically less stable and more sensitive to the oils and salt on even clean hands, so gloves are best for handling any prints or negatives not in individual protective enclosures. Cotton gloves can catch or leave fibres on photos, which is why we tend to use latex or nitrile gloves instead.
Day 2 of #Archive30, a #TypicalDay digitizing glass plate and individual film negatives, and generating positive digital images. Equipment: the aforementioned nitrile gloves, dry-erase pen for labelling, a not-superlative phone camera & light box, Paint software. Extra cost: 0. Quality: sub-professional, of course, but more than adequate for access to the information in the photos and to facilitate future background research. Also good to avoid sending the collection offsite and to keep light exposure to a minimum. #DIYdigi
One wrinkle I discovered while taking digital photographs of a fluorescent light box is that the light in fact has a flicker, thanks to alternating current electricity. This flicker produces weird dark-orange stripes in the photos, example shown above. I was able to fiddle with the manual settings on my phone camera to get rid of the stripes, but the images were somewhat overexposed. On inversion, this made the generated positive images underexposed, so more correction was required, but no significant information was lost - certainly any lack of exactitude in the exposure aspect of reproduction is far outweighed by having the first access to positive images of these photographs in 50+ years.
Day 3 of #Archive30. Speaking of inverting negative images and adjusting exposure settings on the generated positives, here are three versions of one of several BA Howell self portraits in the collection. Was this a glow in the dark experiment? How did he get the teeth to glow like that? Ultraviolet light would make his white shirt collar stand out as well. I hope he wasn't using radioactive toothpaste... Anyway, Bert's teeth in this photo are certainly #SomethingScary. Look closely for evidence of touching up on the negative, around the mouth.
Day 4 of #Archive30, the Giant Whirl ride in Seattle's Luna Park (operated 1907-1913 at Alki Point, West Seattle) was #SomethingBig. Howell identifies its location incorrectly as 'Madrona Park'. Did he have a professional interest in the amusement park's impressive illuminations? Maybe we'll find out one day - so much more research potential in this collection.
Day 5 of #Archive30. Due to a lack of captions or contextual records, Bert Howell's photos are full of #UntoldStories. This young woman, shown here in an urban setting and wearing a fashionable hat, high lace collar and brooch, appears many times in his Portland period, identified only as "Bunches" and "Ida". One places her living at 83 7th St, Portland OR in 1907/8. Who was she? If the address was a boarding house, city directories may not list individual tenants, but it would be good to check.
Day 6 of #Archives30. Teeth again. #HealthArchives can turn up in unexpected places, such as these dental records in Bert Howell's WW1 attestation papers from Library and Archives Canada (the national archives). Aged 40, he was in France with the Canadian Forestry Corps (CFC) 1917-1919 - and had pretty good teeth!
Canada did not bring in WW1 conscription until the Military Service Act of 29 August 1917. Bert Howell signed up 6 weeks before that, less than a month before his 40th birthday. Were electricians a reserved occupation in Canada during WW1? more questions to come, more research to do...
Day 7 of #Archive30. Not many personal/family photo collections include pictures of early hydroelectric power plants, but Bert Howell visited and photographed them at Myrtle Creek, Falls City & Wilhelmina, Oregon, and Doty, Washington - presumably as part of his Portland-based work as an electrician/electrical machinist. #UnusualItem
Bonus entry, another Day 7 of #Archive 30, high wire rewiring. This #UnusualItem shows a young woman on scaffolding atop Portland's Meier & Frank department store building. The signs were illuminated - was Bert Howell changing some lightbulbs? This picture is not dated - maybe there are clues in the Meier & Frank archives within the holdings of the Oregon Historical Society.
Day 8 of #Archive30. Want to know more about #YourWorkplace (that is #MyWorkplace)? There's a photo tour for that! Click here As ever, information and research assistance are available from the (half time) archivist by phone, email, carrier pigeon etc.
Day 9 of #Archive30. Define the differences between #DigitalArchives #DigitizedArchives #DigitalCollection #DigitalImage #ElectronicRecords #BornDigital ... Anyway, somebody will be able to identify this distinctive mountain (probably BC, may be reversed), shown here in an undated snowy landscape. From the single film negative in Bert Howell's photos (OBA PR 198).
Day 12 of #Archive30. If the two pieces of this large glass plate negative (positive shown here) are ever reunited, that will be a #ConservationWin. No date or IDs, but the painted backdrop and theatrical period costumes set this and several other similar negatives apart as studio photos, rare in BA Howell's collection.
Day 14 of #Archive30. There's no caption written on the negative itself, but the sparse index for the little album of cellophane sleeves housing this one corresponds accurately: a crawfish picnic (probably in Portland OR ca 1908) for #ArchiveFoodandDrink. Ida/"Bunches" appears again in the centre. Most early photographs are stiffly posed formal portraits, but by the early years of the 20th century, and the introduction of the first truly portable 'box' cameras, informal private photography became possible.
Day 19 of #Archive30. For instant whimsy, swap hats: #ArchiveAdvice and yet more #ArchiveFashion, notably puffed sleeves and a strikingly striped tie. Bert Howell and friend, another picnic. There is the ghost of another picture on this one, maybe an accidentalpartial double exposure. OBA PR 198 temp ref Howell Box 3-01-05
Day 20 of #Archive30. A young woman, dressed in the height of #ArchiveFashion rational dress for ?ca.1908 in stockings, cycling bloomers and jacket, and with her hair tucked up under a cap, prepares to push off on her bicycle from a convenient perch against a fence. Another young woman is almost out of frame, showing only the front of her skirt and a blurred half of her face. OBA PR 198, BA Howell photos.
Day 25 of #Archive 30. For #SportArchives, Bert Howell presents to you: Extreme Sitting, ca. 1908 edition. "On Top of Fliedner Block, Washington St, Portland Oregon". Built 1905-6, the Fliedner building was already far from the tallest in Portland, but provided great views of the growing city.
Day 26 of #Archive30. More of Bert Howell's #ArchivePeople, foot passengers disembarking from the "ferry across Columbia River, Vancouver Washington", ie between Vancouver WA and Portland OR, ca 1907-1909. Lots of ferry history on this coast! This ship is also called the "Vancouver".
Day 29 of #Archive30. Next #ArchiveGoals digitization project: the family photo album of RR Taylor (1884-1942), who held the position of Reeve (i.e. Mayor) of Oak Bay 1936-40. Here, several photos of Drake's Hardware company picnic, ca.1914 (no date on photo). Drake's Hardware store at this time was downtown at 1418 Douglas, with another branch, briefly, on Oak Bay Ave. RR Taylor was company secretary. Samuel Drake also served as Oak Bay's Reeve 1920-22.
Questions? Please get in touch!
Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives
Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/our-community/archives/photographs-view
Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives
Email: archives@oakbay.ca
Phone: 250-598-3290
- Post by Anna Sander, 9 May 2022.
To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, May). 'Project #Archive 30, April 2022.' [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/project-2 [date].
