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Behind Every Photograph . . .
The Image Collection of the NHA's Research Library

By Georgen Gilliam Charnes

Few things give us more of a sense of history than a photograph. Expressions, clothing, and small details of surroundings suggest the personality and social status of a person in an image; vanity, wealth, and shyness show even after a hundred years. When I pick up an image of an unidentified person, my mind immediately tries to fill in the blanks, to muse on that person's life.

Take this image at left, for instance. A cased daguerreotype of an unidentified woman in a long dress with a full skirt with many bows and ruffles and a bodice with bell sleeves and wide trim; her hair is oiled, with a center part, styled in ringlets worn in front of her ears, and a plait or bun at the top of the back of her head. Her clothing and hair style tell me immediately that this photograph was taken in the early to mid-1850s, but there are questions left unanswered. Is this a half-mourning outfit? It's difficult to tell if this is a black dress in this daguerreotype; it's also difficult to see if there's crepe on the dress. With that hair, in a style typically worn by young adult women, the ring on her right hand, and no veil, she's too smartly attired for full or second-year mourning. But then, this could be a dark red dress! She wears a ring on her right forefinger and in her left hand clutches a parasol that matches her dress; does the decoration and opulence of her dress and her curls tell us she is wealthy? It's hard to tell; it's amazing what a large part of their resources women spent on their clothes at that time. Young schoolteachers making $54 a year might spend $20 on a shawl of good quality that would last for years. The dress in this image doesn't look obviously altered from an earlier style, as some photographs clearly show. Perhaps she had a servant who sewed and repaired her clothes, or perhaps her family's position and those of other rich young women kept seamstresses on the island employed. But maybe she didn't live on Nantucket--maybe she's a niece, sending her favorite uncle a portrait as a remembrance. Her face seems confident, and rather solemn. However, it's important to remember that the daguerreotype process required the sitter to remain frozen for several seconds, or even minutes (the process improved over time). Rare is the smiling portrait taken in that day, perhaps because a frozen smile is unflattering, or perhaps sitting for a portrait was a serious occasion and people didn't have the expectation to smile for the camera.

Looking at this image, I get an immediate sense of the beginning of this woman's day. There must have been a lot of time spent on brushing and curling and hooking and fastening. She must have had some assistance, whether from a servant or a sister. That's a very different life from mine-it takes me a half hour to be washed and coifed and dressed, just the time my coffee needs to brew.

However, what strikes me when looking at this image is not that this young woman is so different from us, but that it is a the face of a woman you might see today, walking down Main Street, having lunch at the pharmacy. If you saw her today she might look a bit different; she would probably have plucked her eyebrows, have a less time-consuming hairstyle, and more informal style of dress. But chances are she would follow the fashion trends of today to the same degree that they were followed in the 1850s. People and customs haven't changed all that markedly.

The Nantucket Historical Association Research Library (NHARL) is fortunate to be the repository of over 50,000 images that put faces on Nantucket history. This visual record documents the history of the island and its inhabitants, architecture, landscape, and events, giving us a rich source of information that significantly supplements our other documentary materials. Images from the collections have been used in many publications and other media presentations, including television specials, academic textbooks, and fictionalized histories. The collections include examples of most photographic processes: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cyanotypes, and albumen prints; these are presented in various formats, including photographic albums, stereographs, velvet-lined cases, and cartes-de-visite.

The photograph collections portray stories of life on this island that would be lost but for these images, often pasted into scrapbooks and forgotten by the families of their original owners until found when cleaning out an attic. Our oldest item features the only known image of Nantucket taken before the Great Fire of 1846, a daguerreotype of downtown Nantucket showing several large wooden buildings. We hold many items from the latter half of the nineteenth-century-capturing the look of Nantucket before cars, movies, television, and all the other trappings of life today.

While the Nantucket Historical Association treasures the many nineteenth-century images it holds, it is part of our mission to continue to collect the history of the island as it is being made. New collections and photographic items are being added regularly, in an attempt not just to gather odd bits of antiquarian interest but to build collections that document the island's history as it continues to grow and change. Significant collections documenting our more recent history include the Tony Sarg photographs, rescued from the Hospital Thrift Shop by NHA members, along with other Sarg materials. Sarg, a wonderfully inventive artist who summered on Nantucket and kept a shop here, was internationally known for his puppets, illustrations, and for creating the first large Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloons. One of Sarg's most delightful escapades was to inflate his sea serpent balloon on Coatue, then to float it across to South Shore beach. The Inquirer and Mirror was quite straight-faced in reporting on the sighting of the giant sea serpent, and Nantucketers converged to view the "beast." Last year, we were fortunate to receive a large collection of photographs taken for a local arts and events newspaper, the Nantucket Map & Legend, which recently ceased production. These images capture much of Nantucket's daily life through its news stories over the last fifteen years.

The custodianship of Nantucket's history involves many steps. While the most visible part of this process is collecting, it is only a small part of our efforts. Much behind-the-scenes work goes into keeping track of, storing, preserving, and providing access to all our materials, including the photographic collections. The first step is to keep a paper trail of all incoming materials, gathering as much information as possible on each item, including its provenance and identities of any individuals or events featured in the images. Next, we must attend to the preservation of the items by providing appropriate storage regarding the object's size and physical needs. Most of the materials held by the NHARL are housed in archival-quality boxes and stored in the vault, which is in the especially renovated section of the basement where the humidity is controlled to a constant 40% and the temperature to a constant 65°. This atmosphere provides a climate that prevents chemical breakdown of the materials. One of the most important steps in the care of the photographic collections is providing access to them. No matter how wonderful a collection, it's pointless if no one knows you have it and can't find anything in it. Access to our photographic collections is provided in several ways. Most of the items have been photocopied and the copies placed into subject categories in binders. While this system allows access along certain subject lines, it does not provide full retrieval. Every image could be placed under several subjects. For example, while a researcher looking for an image of her house might find it under the subject of "Main Street," another researcher looking for images of all houses of a lean-to architecture style would not be able to access desired images without looking through the entire collection. Because of the need for improved access, the NHARL now catalogues its photograph collections into a computer database, complete with digitized images of many items. This database now contains more than 5,000 items and is being continually improved and augmented.

The NHARL has recently initiated a new digitization program to more securely preserve the collections. All scanned images are now stored in several formats. An archival master is first created and stored on a CD, a duplicate of which is stored offsite. Then, an in-house reference image is created for close examination. Finally, we have added the process of creating low-resolution images for display on the Web. Access to the image database through the Web allows researchers to access the growing collection of digitized images and database records from remote locations and facilitates service to our patrons. The on-line image database is available through the NHA website. Patrons may also learn about purchasing image reproductions on-line.

The NHARL is home to the most complete visual record of the history of Nantucket. We take pride in caring for these materials and providing access to the collections, thereby doing our part to fulfill the mission of the NHA.

Georgen Gilliam Charnes is the NHA's curator of library and archives.