Guest post by Ada Brown, University of Puget Sound intern
My name is Ada, and I am a student at the University of Puget Sound, going into my Junior year. I am studying Politics and Government and Studio Art, and was interested in working with the Northwest Room archives in order to grow my personal knowledge of Tacoma and experience work in a governmental institution. With a fellowship grant from my school, I have been able to work with the Northwest room’s files and photograph collections. Through this 10-week internship I have had the opportunity to explore collections in an assortment of exciting ways; I have worked on projects like researching photo collections and writing archival descriptions to digitizing 70-year-old theater company receipts. I have found entertaining stories, interesting photographs, and areas of intrigue that I am excited to share! One of the first collections I tackled in this internship was a project on Carstens Meat Packing Company. Within this project I was able to write authority record for the photograph collection, meaning I was able to research the company these photographs were of and write a detailed history for our digital archive. I enjoyed being able to look through old newspaper articles in order to investigate the history of a company that was once a household name on the west coast, but now only remains in photographs and legacy.
Another project I worked on was the Washington State Fair photograph collection. This massive set of pictures spans 20 photographers, over 100 years of fairs and many generations of Washingtonians. My favorites from this collection include images of people eating the classic fair food, of corn, ice cream and cotton candy, as well as many rodeo pictures. You can see parallels through the images of cowgirls from the 1920’s and the cowboys in 2008. You can observe interesting traditions, like the activity of setting children on sheep and letting them run loose around the arena. The sheer number of photographs allows the viewer to get lost in another time. Key historical events also unfold through the photographs, setting them firmly in the context of the time they were taken. Such as the 1970 photographs when the fair went ablaze, and the 9/11 tribute concert in 2002. In a way each of the decades captured show so much about the time they were taken in, and so much about what is so fundamentally human about these annual large group gatherings.
One of my favorite collections I got the opportunity to work on in person was the John Hamrick Theatre Records. These files spanned about 15 years, from 1951 to 1964, and contained documents from daily/monthly expenses and revenue. What I found fascinating about these files was the tidbits of information I was able to pick up along the way. Slowly, I learned that there was a venue called the Capri Theatre, which had been changed from the Liberty. Then I learned that there had been an original Blue Mouse Theatre downtown, while the modern-day Blue Mouse on Proctor had been built as the Blue Mouse junior. Even through the tasks of organizing and filling the materials I was able to consider what the daily life of a receptionist in 1950’s Tacoma would have been like, working with paper and pencil, staying organized through scribbled notes and filing cabinets.
In this final collection that I worked on, the Doecher collection, I digitized over 100 photographs from the early 20th century for our online archive. I love how this collection shows people in their daily lives. It is unafraid to show joy in all forms- through laughing, smiling, playing with dogs and climbing trees with cats. One of my favorite photographs is of two young women in the 1920’s. I love their outfits and their short 1920’s bobs. I feel like I can see them in real life, as if they are here with us today instead of living through memory and photograph.
Throughout the course of these 10 weeks, I have uploaded and edited over 300 photographs in ORCA, the digital archive. I have explored the Northwest Room and gained knowledge of buildings that went up in flames a century ago. I am able to walk downtown and know what buildings and people existed on these streets before me. This amazing opportunity with the Tacoma Public Library has taught me so much about local history, the amazing resources the library has to offer and the joy of making knowledge open to the public.
