Sarah R. Caylor

Research Files

Peeling Off the Emulsion

The City of Portland Photographic Collection, 1913–1943

What is she is looking at, the woman in the center of the frame of Fifth / Morrison, 1927? She perches on the curb, toes floating above the street, feet tied into Mary Janes with lacy bows. She has just readjusted the briefcase in her right hand, but her eyes remain fixed on a blurred piece of paper in her left. The man beside her also balances on the curb, as do the two to his left; his eyes appear to be fixed on her. What is it that he is transfixed by? Is it her? Are we witnessing the budding of a love affair, or is he simply trying to decipher what is written on the slip of paper that she is holding? He seems oblivious to the woman on his opposite side, and she to him. She has removed her gloves, holding them in her left hand so that we are able to see her wedding band as her right hand gently touches her cheek. The man next to her, in overalls with rolled-up pant legs and unpolished shoes, appears to be a working man. He too stares off into the distance, disconnected from those around him.

This photograph can show us certain details of downtown Portland, Oregon, in 1927. We know from the rails in the street, for example, that a streetcar once ran down Fifth Street where Portland's northbound bus mall is now. We know that automobiles were allowed to park along Fifth Street despite the streetcar traffic. We see that everyone in this image is wearing a hat, so hats were obviously more popular in 1927 than they are today. Yet, how much can a historian honestly say about a photograph if little is known about it beyond what is evident in the image itself? How can photographs largely disconnected from their historical contexts serve as tools for historians? Describing the image seems like an unbiased and therefore historically safe start, but even in the description above a speculative narrative has taken over. This creative engagement with a photograph can draw a viewer in by giving the characters motion and lending a sense of time to an otherwise static scene.¹ This dynamic between speculative narrative and more factual information can give life to what might otherwise be a simple photograph.

Fifth / Morrison, 1927

OHS neg., COP 01749

I have concentrated on describing the people in this image to encourage you to look more closely at the photograph, but it is also important to keep in mind that the figures were not necessarily the focus of the photographer's interest. Fifth / Morrison, 1927, was taken by a photographer employed by the Engineering Department of the City of Portland, who was charged with recording the development of public works in the city. He most likely intended to document something such as the uneven bricks lining the rail line or the hole in the sidewalk near the curb, both in need of repair. Yet this information takes up merely a fifth of the composition, if that. Why did the photographer choose a vertical format, for example, producing with it this canyon of a streetscape, with its interesting array of passersby? Why did he give precedence to street action and composition rather than the facts that he was likely employed to record? Was it patience and skill as he set up the shot and waited for the right moment, or was it just dumb luck that he produced an image sufficiently interesting to be resurrected from an archive seventy-five years later?

The images in the City of Portland Photographic Collection range from scenes at well-known intersections, such as Fifth / Morrison, 1927, to interiors of forgotten buildings, pictures of civic events, and unexpected collections of goods. As a whole, the collection is an amalgam of images that could speak to nearly any subject in Portland's history. It includes about 4,125 negatives taken by city photographers and a handful of vintage prints that were donated to the Oregon Historical Society by the city's Engineering Department in the early 1970s, prior to the establishment of a city archive.² Study photographs from the majority of negatives have been printed and added to the Society's collections.

I first worked closely with the City of Portland Collection in 2001, when Amanda Tillstrom and I organized Urban Backbone, an exhibition of photographs from the Society's collection that showed how the development of Portland and its neighboring towns — East Portland, Sellwood, St. Johns, Albina, Parkrose, and Sunnyside — was largely influenced by the structural web of Portland's streetcar lines. Although the exhibition focused on the collection's intended strengths, it presented only one facet of a diverse collection. The same collection of historical documents can be used to serve different aims. In preparing this article, I chose particular images because they invite creative speculation. They are not intended to represent the overall collection but to show the varying sides of it, providing more intimate views of the photographers at work, of Portland, and of the people who once lived there.

Southwest Third / Yamhill, March 1923

OHS neg., COP 01347

Take the details in Southwest Third / Yamhill, March 1923, for example. The classical column to which the street sign is attached is reminiscent of Greco-Roman architecture and speaks to the European cultural values that some Portlanders must have identified with at the time. The classical S-curves that attach light globes to the column echo the curves of the bracket holding the street sign. If you look closely at the texture of the column, you can see deep scratches circling the concrete mass. The scratches continue up the column to just above head height, before the texture becomes smooth nearer to the top. The wear shows that the column has been well used, perhaps scarred by metal news racks such as the one pictured here, tied to the column with twine. The wooden stand to the left of the news rack has "DAILY PAPER" scrawled across the top support board in chalk, a rudimentary answer to the newspaper vendor's advertising needs. He sits on a stool bundled into a pea coat that, given the date of the picture, is likely a World War I military issue, perhaps even from the vendor's own tour. It looks to have been a brisk but untypically sunny day for March in Portland. Such details offer a sense of what life was like on this corner in 1923, and the photograph allows us to gather cultural information that is more difficult to find in other types of historical documents.

There are two images similar to Southwest Third / Yamhill, March 1923, in the collection —Southwest Park / Morrison, March 1923, and West Park / Morrison, March 1923. Numbered sequentially and supposedly taken on the same day, these three images together include details that offer insights into the photographer's day and his methods of working.

Southwest Third / Yamhill, March 1923, shows a gentleman leaning against a column, smoking a pipe. If you look closely, you can see the veins and wrinkles in the gentleman's left hand as his fingers rest in the pants pocket of his three-piece, pinstripe suit. The hand adds punctuation to a pose that looks stiff and somewhat unnatural, convincing me that the man was posed. A gentleman again appears in Southwest Park / Morrison, March 1923, this time with his back toward the camera. At first glance, it is easy to assume that this is the same one who appeared in Southwest Third / Yamhill, March 1923, but upon closer examination the assumption seems less likely. If it is the same man, he has changed his hat (compare the shape of the crown and brim). This man also looks taller and a little slimmer than the one who stood on Southwest Third Street and Yamhill. The way that his left hand is reaching toward his face suggests that he, like the gentleman on Southwest Third and Yamhill, is smoking a pipe. The gentleman's hand — this time the right — reaches into his pocket, but his stance is more comfortable than that of the man in the previous image. There are at least two people walking across the street, but the depth of field is significantly more narrow in this photograph than in the other two, and it is difficult to tell what lies in the background. The emphasized foreground becomes the focus. West Park / Morrison, March 1923, is pared down even more — a singular street sign echoed by a street lamp behind. The only figure in the photograph is a man on the far side of the street walking sufficiently briskly that his leg is blurred.

Southwest Park / Morrison, March 1923

OHS neg., COP 01346

West Park / Morrison, March 1923

OHS neg., COP 01348

The placement of figures in these three images — the man leaning against the pillar, the man standing with his back toward the camera, and the notable absence of a main figure — must have been a conscious decision on the part of the photographer. His decision influences how we view these images today, but it is not the only part to their story. Such a sequence of photographs creates a cinematic effect that allows viewers to fill the space between these not-so-static images, imagining the time that passed between the taking of these images merely six blocks apart. Because the negative numbers were assigned years later at the Oregon Historical Society, we still have to wonder which of these photographs was taken first. Did the photographer carry his bulky 4 × 5-inch camera, attached to a tripod, down Third Street and up Morrison, past the courthouse and the Portland Hotel (now Pioneer Courthouse Square) to Park Street? Or was it the other way around? Perhaps he drove. None of this information can be found in the photograph, yet these questions are still a part of its history. Separating factual or plausible information from speculation is a difficult process, influenced greatly by how much is known about a certain image or its context. At its heart, reading a photograph is always about addition. It is about reconciling what one adds to the photograph with what is nonetheless already there.³

The physical nature of these photographs and the particular circumstances of their production can also offer information. The photographs in this collection, for example, were shot on large-format negatives that held only one image and required bulky cameras. Each shot had to be quite a bit more purposeful than those taken with modern point-and-shoot cameras. This type of information informs how we look at and how we read photographs as historical documents.

The photographic images presented here carry signs of their initial production and physical nature, offering not only information about the objects in the photograph but also more peripheral information about the photographic process. We can see, for example, whether any light leaks may have occurred or whether glass or film negatives were used. Both the deliberate and the unintentional information conveyed by a photograph can prove invaluable when we examine an undated image such as Interior of Women's "Comfort Station," Southwest Second / Washington. If a photograph is printed full-frame (exposing the entire negative), it is not difficult to determine what type of negative was used. Examination of this print shows that the negative was made of glass — chips can be seen along the edge on the right side of the negative, and the top right shows evidence that the emulsion is flaking off. The dome of light on the upper portion of the image was caused by light leaking into the negative holder and over-exposing the negative, causing this portion of the negative to be darker than the rest and the corresponding portion of the print to be lighter.

Interior of Women's "Comfort Station," Southwest Second / Washington

OHS neg., COP 00073

The use of a glass-plate negative places Interior of Women's "Comfort Station," Southwest Second / Washington, fairly early on in the collection. Dry-plate glass negatives were widely available as early as the mid-1880s, and they continued to be popular among commercial and professional photographers well into the twentieth century, making it difficult to pin down an exact date when the photograph may have been taken. By at least 1927, city photographers had begun to use 5 × 7-inch film negatives to shoot photographs for this collection, and by at least 1942 they had begun to use 4 × 6-inch film negatives. Plate film, the type of negative used for all of the other photographs that accompany this essay, has notches in the upper-right corner of the negative. Each brand and speed of film has a different notch pattern, allowing photographers to determine what type of film they were using and which side of the negative they were exposing while in the darkroom. The notches can also tell historians a date range within which particular types of negatives were manufactured. Photographers could have shot other film outside of these dates, but the evidence indicates that Interior of Women's "Comfort Station," Southwest Second / Washington was likely to have been shot prior to 1927.

For years, the defunct comfort station has stood near the base of the west end of the Burnside Bridge. An L-shaped building, painted pink, it now stands in the middle of a parking lot.⁴ The details in this photograph would have been hidden from passersby, however. The floral and leaf trim above the mirrors that continues around to the other walls, the old-fashioned soap dispensers, the knobs on the stall doors, the shadow on the back wall from the light fixture and its reflection on the floor, the bend in the metal as it goes around the pole, and the frames on the back wall that may have been windows painted over all speak to a certain period style. The station appears to have been in full operation when the image was taken. The lights are on, and it is well serviced. The wear on the concrete step leading up to the back two stalls makes me believe that the photograph was not taken during the station's inauguration, and the presence of a garbage can in the lower-left corner leads me to believe that the station had not yet seen the end of its days.

The photograph provides a glimpse into one of Portland's quiet and perhaps forgotten places, the sort of places that are scattered throughout this collection. In many ways, this photograph can function as a memory of a place to which you have likely never been. If you are in Portland and walk by this now-vacant building, see if this image is not conjured up in your mind. This photograph could well constitute a memory in and of itself.⁵

On August 23, 1943, someone piled an assortment of condemned electrical plugs atop a table in Portland's City Hall and then took a picture. The composition of Electrical Department, City Hall, Condemned Electrical Plugs, August 23, 1943, places these plugs front and center. It is an unusual composition, but the objects themselves are altogether ordinary. Presumably taken to document how many electrical plugs the city went through in a given period of time, the image leads me to wonder how long a period and for what utilities were the plugs used? What compelled someone to take this image? Was visual documentation of condemned electrical plugs really necessary for the city's records?

From the look of the foliage in 1120–1122 Southwest Washington, April 25, 1934, Condemned, not many people ever ventured behind this building. Haunting because it is too quiet, too serene, the image is certainly not like the downtown Portland of today, seventy years later. Why would the city photograph the back side, projecting an unwarranted intimacy onto an otherwise ordinary building? The tonal range makes the image poetic, with the building taking on an almost ethereal quality that heightens the feeling of intimacy. There are people to describe in the photograph — two men in the background, near the street — but this is largely peripheral information. What is interesting is the feeling, the psychological tone, that the image conveys. It is doubtful that many had ever experienced the building from this vantage point or taken note of the electrical plugs when they were in use. Both photographs almost function as memento mori, memorials to objects doomed to be condemned.

Electrical Department, City Hall, Condemned Electrical Plugs, August 23, 1943

OHS neg., COP 00106

The sense of intimacy with these objects and with their imminent demise gives the two images their residual power, but their inclusion in the City of Portland Collection also reflects on the nature of the archive.⁶ Divorced from their original context and order, these two images seem like anomalies within the collection. Archiving is about cataloging and retrieval. When working with a collection, an archivist may need to understand or impose connections among otherwise seemingly unrelated objects. Once these images might have spoken about city policy regarding their subjects, but they now can speak only as historical artifacts. The challenge for historians is to untangle the complicated purposes of the creators, archivists, and others who have worked with a collection but also to see beyond them — to garner information that was not necessarily intended or realized at the time that they were produced.

1120–1122 Southwest Washington, April 25, 1934, Condemned

OHS neg., COP 01569

By the 1930s, photographs often told a story. Functioning like stills from a larger cinematic production, photographs were utilized to show suffering and hope or to document humanity in all of its various states. The following four images fall within this tradition. Taken in the early 1940s, these photographs echo images taken by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and others for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Whereas FSA pictures were taken specifically to document the human condition in rural, Depression-era America, the City of Portland Collection documents the human condition as a side note. This meaning was likely not part of the photographers' original intent. These images are technically stunning, something certainly not necessary for the task of documenting the development of public works in Portland. The existence of these images within this collection shows not only the influence of wider forces but also the individual will of a photographer to claim ownership over his work and not just take the picture any old way.

Sullivan's Gulch, June 26, 1941

OHS neg., COP 00152

When examining photographs such as these, which could easily be given an artistic lineage and are produced in a series implying cohesion and intent, it is tempting to talk about them as art. I could compare them to examples of artistic photography that were circulating around the United States at the time and attempt to reconstruct the photographer's influences and intentions. Dealing with them solely as works of art, however, would strip them of their larger context, limit their utility, and make them less particular to Portland and its history. Photographs found in a public archive taken by photographers employed by the City of Portland have different political, economic, and social implications than does a photograph taken by, say, Edward Weston for a gallery exhibition. Images in the City of Portland Collection, for example, were never intended to be exhibited. They were intended as visual documentation to be included in reports dealing with proposed or completed construction or repair of Portland's public works. We can appreciate their artistic qualities in an exhibition, but to fully appreciate them we need to acknowledge the original intent behind them as well. They can occupy a number of different spheres — historic, artistic, social, political, economic, and so on — that overlap and are constantly in a dynamic relationship with one another.

Shack, June 26, 1941

OHS neg., COP 00159

I often heard of the community in Sullivan's Gulch that was displaced by the Banfield Freeway (I-84); but having never seen photographs, I had conjured up images of my own. Sullivan's Gulch was Portland's largest Hooverville, a term applied to communities of homeless Americans that sprang up all over the country during the Great Depression. It stretched between Northeast Grand Street and Northeast Twenty-first Avenue, clustered around a railroad line. Sullivan's Gulch, June 26, 1941, and Shack, June 26, 1941, make this place seem more real. The structures are much more permanent than I had imagined. The barrels and the laundry make the place look habitable. I had looked at Shack, June 26, 1941, several times before I noticed the two men in the background, one sitting, somewhat shaded by a structure, and looking up at a man standing between rows of laundry. These images helped dispel perceptions that I had about the living conditions in Sullivan's Gulch; they do not seem all that different from other images in the collection taken at permanent residences.

Interior, House, 1942

OHS neg., COP 00939

Interior, House, 1942, and Privies, 1942, for example, were mixed in among several images of residences in Northeast Portland. The majority of the photographs were taken from the street, with expanses of lawn between the camera and the subject. These two get uncharacteristically close. The details pull you into Interior, House, 1942— the unbuttoned undershirt, the dish rack hanging askew on the wall in the closet, the lampshade knocked awry in the back bedroom and the clutter on the table, the electrical cords, balls, towels, hot pad, and spatula hanging from the door frame, the bags under the woman's eyes and the apron ruffles around her neck, the wood-burning stove, the checkered tile, and the wood floor. This image is as direct and unadorned as any of the FSA images, but its intimacy makes less sense in the context of this otherwise dispassionate, utilitarian collection.

Privies, 1942

OHS neg., COP 00944

In Privies, 1942, it appears as though two neighbors have built an outhouse together, complete with porcelain stools and perhaps even running water. At 2621, on the right, firewood is neatly stacked in a shed with a doorframe swung wide open. Upon first glance, the sheds appear to be of different construction, but with further inspection we can see that the roof is similar in each, that the support beams match, and that the neighbors at 2621 have added a few accoutrements. Next door, scraps of wood line the ground and are stacked up near the door to the shed, yet the shed itself appears empty. Here again, time enters the scene. It is easy to imagine someone stacking up the scrap wood and placing it in the shed. It is equally easy to imagine its eventual demise or to project our own images onto this shed whether or not it is still standing. In one sense this image does function as a document in that it provides information; but with its banal subject matter, this photograph, like others presented here, also calls into question the utility of a document divorced from its context. In other words, the history this "document" provides consists not only of what we can retrieve from the circumstances of its production but also of the histories that we bring to it ourselves.

The function of the City of Portland Collection has changed since it was created to document the city's infrastructure. Each time they are resurrected at a different time or by another person, these photographs — like all historical documents — offer new information or interpretations. Photohistorian Douglas Nickel has said that "images are mute, at best a slippery kind of evidence," arguing that a photograph tells us nothing but what we bring to it.⁷ The exchange between an image and a viewer's perceptions of and associations with it can make history malleable and difficult to pin down, but it also makes images dynamic and able to serve historians as more than mere illustrations. These images are powerful in their ability to serve different purposes and provide interpretations and information in a variety of contexts. It is this dynamic between the information contained in the photographs and the contexts that we provide as historians and interpreters that makes it possible to use photographs for a variety of purposes and that, in turn, makes photographs generate the very histories that they tell.

Notes

I would like to thank Geoffrey Batchen for his input and suggestions on this article, Susan Seyl and Bob Kingston for researching loose ends while I was unable to travel to the collections myself, and Amanda Tillstrom for her conversations about this collection early on.

^1. See Martha Langford, Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001); and Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).

^2. Once a city archives was established, photographs that had been scattered throughout different city departments were gathered there. The City of Portland's Stanley Parr Archives and Records Center holds many vintage prints and over 1 million negatives as part of its City of Portland Collection. This article draws only from images held at the Oregon Historical Society.

^3. See Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 55.

^4. Currently, the entire building is fenced off due to construction.

^5. Photographs, of course, also can function as counter-memories, replacing actual experiences of a place. See Barthes, Camera Lucida, 91.

^6. See Allan Sekula, "The Body and the Archive," in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, ed. Richard Bolton (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 343–89; as well as Ingrid Schaffner, ed. Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art (Munich: Prestel, 1998); and Leslie Shedden, Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Shedden Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton, 1948–1968, ed. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie (Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983).

^7. See Douglas R. Nickel, Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 19.

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