Special Collections Photos in Ballard

Flier for show at Ballard's Aster Coffee Lounge

Looking for something to do this weekend?  Why not take in the Second Saturday Art Walk in Ballard?

This coming Saturday, April 10, 2010, is the opening and reception for a display of images from the University of Washington Special Collections at the Aster Coffee Lounge.  The show has been organized by CSS Photography, which assists with the photographic needs of the UW community and beyond.   This event is a rare opportunity to look at our photographs while drinking coffee (or even wine or beer)!  Read more here.

Name Those Men!

James E. Bradford with two unidentified men

With our own Flickr Commons site still in the offing, what better way to while away a Friday afternoon than to try to identify who is in this photograph and what are they doing?

Since another election day is just around the corner (remember to vote!), here is one of the eight loose photographs we discovered while cataloging the James E. Bradford scrapbooks last fall.  If you compare the image from his election flier, you will see that one of these men is an older version of Bradford (sorry for the low resolution scans).  The rest is up to you!

Mystics among us

A few months ago, Nicolette Bromberg (Visual Materials Curator @ UW Special Collections) brought in a collection of photographs from Richard M. Kovak of the Nile Shrine Center in Mountlake Terrace, Washington. The collection documents the membership and activities of Seattle Shriners (members of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Nile Temple).

According to the history on the Nile Shrine website, the AAONMS (an offshoot of Freemasonry) was “originally established [in 1872] to provide fun and fellowship for its members.” The Nile Temple of Seattle was formed by splitting off from the Afifi Temple of Tacoma in 1908; the following photograph was probably taken around that time.

Officers of Seattle

In elaborate costumes, these Shriners certainly appear to be enjoying fun and fellowship!

A major portion of the collection consists of member portraits, many of them identified. In most portraits, the member wears a fez hat which is decorated with the title of that member’s role or office, such as “Recorder” and “Potentate.” There is also a series of panoramic group photographs which show how membership and customs changed over the first half of the twentieth century.

Later snapshots collected in photo albums show the Shriners’ social and community activities, such as their participation in the children’s hospitals they fund, visits to schools, and their appearances in local parades, often dressed in homemade costumes of “Disnay” characters like Pinocchio and Mickey Mouse.

The collection is unprocessed and unsorted, but a preliminary finding aid is available.

Book Signing Tonight

Picturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition dust jacket cover

If you are looking for something to do this evening, why not head over to the University Bookstore?  At 7:00 pm, the Special Collections Division’s own Nicolette Bromberg will be on hand to discuss and sign copies of her new book, Picturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.  This lavish volume features the Visual Materials Curator’s own selection of documentary photographs by AYPE official photographer, Frank Nowell, as well as recent photographs from a project led by John Stamets in which University of Washington students rephotographed various sites of the 1909 exposition on the current UW campus.

You also can see some of Nowell’s images for yourselves at the previously mentioned installations in the University of Washington Libraries and in glorious large-scale format at Picturing the Fair, the exhibition at the Museum of History and Industry.