St. Louis & the City Museum

Industrial landscape along the red line lightrail route, headed towards downtown. Lots of pipes along this building!

Since the pandemic began over two years ago, my traveling has been limited. The vast majority of my time has been spent around Chicagoland, and the rare trip has been done via car and only for a long weekend at a time. With more folks returning to some semblance of pre-pandemic life, I have at least one scheduled cross-country flight for this summer for a wedding. As enjoyable as this trip will be, I still feel anxiety about boarding a plane for the first time in several years, being in close proximity to others for several hours, and being away from home. As such, I planned a short sort of test run trip to make sure I could handle a longer flight and further venture. I opted to fly to St. Louis for a long weekend - at right around an hour, I figured this would give me a taste for the experience without needing to fully commit. We’d also never spent any time in St. Louis, so it was a good excuse to visit a new city.

Our first afternoon was spent wandering around the Arch and its surrounding public space. It was lovely to see the massive structure peeking through blooming trees.

The base of the arch, with stairs down to the visitor center and one of the many bridges across the Mississippi River in the background.

Though we only spent a couple of days, it was a lovely visit. The weather was warm and mostly sunny, a far cry from the rainy 40s and 50s we’d been experiencing in Chicago for what seemed like months. And it was great to explore and photograph, something I’d done far less of during the pandemic, but which feels so satisfying to me. The highlight of the trip for me was a day spent at the City Museum in downtown St. Louis:

“Housed in the 10-story, 600,000 square-foot warehouse of the International Shoe Company, City Museum is a mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of found and repurposed objects. The brainchild of internationally-acclaimed artists Bob and Gail Cassilly, both classically trained sculptors, City Museum opened for visitors in 1997.”

The first space we walked into in the City Museum was full of sea creatures built out of concrete, mosaic, tunnels, and plants.

We then started up the stairs and realized the handrail rungs were made out of an old conveyor system, painted in bright colors.

Slides repurposed from the original merchandise chutes.

The space is absolutely incredible, and I feel like I could have spent the entire weekend there. The 10-story slides repurposed from the original merchandise chutes in particular were mesmerizing. I took many photographs as we walked from space to space, and it happily felt a bit like years past of finding a cool spot and experiencing it through photography. It was heartwarming to see such a broad cross section of the public enjoying the massive space. I’ll definitely be back, as they’re continually modifying and expanding the experience.

Model train, children’s train ride, and pinball area flanked by giant metal insect sculptures.

The rooftop featured a ferris wheel and beautiful views of the St. Louis skyline.

The roof also had several slides, more rebar tunnels to climb through, and a school bus balanced on the edge of the building.

We ended our visit wandering around the massive exterior structure along the old warehouse, which featured two aircraft resting on old cranes and a maze of metal tunnels many kids and some brave adults were climbing through.

It felt strange to be away from home, to be around strangers, to not always be masked up. I still have mixed feelings about how we’re moving forward. At the same time, it was nice to make some space for new experiences and wandering around a new city. 

Enjoying the sunshine, emerging leaves on the trees, and an old deco storefront in downtown St. Louis.

Wandering through Forest Park and stopping to take in the World’s Fair Pavilion on the way to the lightrail.

Stopping by the St. Louis Art Museum to admire the new wing that my partner helped to engineer.

Saying goodbye for now to St. Louis from the Forest Park lightrail station.

Quincy, Illinois

This fall, I took one of the few trips I’ve been on since the pandemic started. We drove out to Quincy Illinois, which is located on the western border of the state along the Mississippi River. Our visit only lasted for a long weekend, and it felt strange to not be in Chicago, but it was nice to have a change of scenery. I was particularly interested in the architecture, especially the industrial area next to the river. It was a good excuse to get my camera out and do a little exploring.

This modernist bank was what prompted me to get out my camera for the first time during the trip.

The next few images are more from the bank. Because yeah, I really liked this building

Who knew that the entrance to parking could actually look interesting?

The mirrored glass made for lovely effects with the lines of the building itself.

Some adaptive reuse for these historic brick buildings, which were likely warehouses in their previous lives.

This taller building looked like it must have had joining tall neighbors which were demolished at some point.

The sun was very intense as we were walking around, and I was really into the white of these satellite dishes against the blue sky.

Historic theater downtown, all the tile work was beautiful.

Next to the theater, a line of multistory brick buildings. It was hard to tell if these were being used and/or occupied.

Walking towards the river as the afternoon progressed, with more industrial and warehouse views.

Old signage, including one neon sign, with taller brick buildings.

There’s a steep hill down to the river, and from the top you get nice views of the industrial buildings and bridges.

Looking up at yet another brick building with some interesting embellishments and partially obscured old painted advertisement or sign.

I enjoyed all the various levels of constructed landscape - lots of buildings on varying grades, and of course, lots of brick.

The newer of a few bridges running across the Mississippi. This little park at the base of the bridge was a pleasant stop for a break.

Silhouetted rail bridge and power lines.

A non-silhouetted view of the train tracks over the bridge, from the perspective of a grade-level set of train tracks.

And finally, some kind of electrical substation along the river, as seen through a chainlink fence.

Open House Chicago 2021

October in Chicago means Open House Chicago, and this year was no exception. After 2020 only featuring sites visitors could view from the exterior, 2021 allowed a return to touring inside buildings across the city and near suburbs. Being fully vaccinated and missing exploring my city, I went out to see a handful of sites in spite of my anxiety about being around strangers for the first time since the pandemic began. I certainly didn’t regret it! We stopped at sites in Logan Square, Wicker Park, Fulton Market, and Back of the Yards, and the current functions of these buildings ranged from comedy clubs to schools to green business incubators. It felt good to get out, enjoy the city, and take some photographs.

Bar at the Lincoln Lodge in Logan Square.

Performance space in the Lincoln Lodge, Logan Square.

Exterior of Josephinum Academy of the Sacred Heart, Wicker Park.

Library in Josephinum Academy of the Sacred Heart, Wicker Park.

Interior of the Herman Miller Showroom in Fulton Market.

Framed work and wallpaper on a wall of the Herman Miller Showroom in Fulton Market

Interior break room space in the Plant, Back of the Yards.

Packinghouse Museum in the Plant, Back of the Yards.

Interior detail of plants in the Plant, Back of the Yards.

Plants and shelving inside Plant Chicago in Back of the Yards.

Interior detail of the ceiling in the Plant Chicago, Back of the Yards.

Reference request: staff clothing in the 1980s

One reference request that did help get my mind off my frustration surrounding the treatment of workers and continued uneasiness about being onsite during the pandemic was from an individual working in costuming for a television show. They are working on wardrobe for an episode set at the museum during the 1980s and were inquiring whether staff working at the museum wore uniforms during this period, and what those outfits looked like if so. They were seeking reference images to help ensure historical accuracy, which I appreciate. 

One of my favorite topics of the archive I manage are images of staff and staff at work. I think it’s important to make the work of museums more visible, to help visitors understand how their experience is the result of many hands and choices, not some singular, neutral entity. So I was keen to dive in and explore staff from this decade. I had some ideas on what jobs may have required or lent themselves to uniforms - security guards, housekeeping staff, and groundskeeping staff, for example - so I began by doing keyword searches in our databases for these terms to find unique identifiers corresponding to images. I also searched the much more generic term of “staff.” From these results, I narrowed the search to images created during the 1980s. Then I began looking in the archive itself for images with the selected unique identifiers, since few of the negatives had been previously digitized. Since most of the images are organized roughly chronologically, I also perused neighboring negatives to see if there were any other relevant images. 

I found a variety of images that seemed to fit the request, so I digitized as many of these negatives and transparencies as I could while onsite. Staff who appear to have worn uniforms during this time included my original suspicions of security guards and housekeeping and groundskeeping staff. Included here too were facilities staff, carpenters, and some art handlers. Other behind-the-scenes office staff, including curators, collection managers, photographers, and editors, did not appear to wear uniforms; nor did docents. 

Transparencies showing staff at the museum who wore uniforms around this time period.

I’m forever thankful that photographers captured what they did, and that the archive has kept these images safe. Even if some of these images were considered unimportant or even boring at the time - and some may still think of them that way today - they still hold value in functioning as a snapshot of the time. In this case, the focus was the clothing, but these images can tell many stories. 

Photography experiments

During my furlough, I spent some time with my camera. I didn’t make much time for photography in previous years as a result of school, so this seemed like a good opportunity to get back into the saddle. And, unlike what few photography sessions I made time for in the recent past, I attempted to do so without exploring a new environment. Architectural, landscape, and place-based photography is my bread and butter, so I decided to switch things up. I worked with macro photography and some different prism materials to create compositions around our apartment. The change of pace was nice - it was a release to experiment, release, and not put so much pressure on myself to make “good” pictures. I hope I can continue this practice more regularly moving forward, since it reminded me why I fell in love with photography to begin with.

Looking through a colorful prism out my office door to the building across the street.

Detail of small rainbows produced from one of my prisms in my office window.

A rare self-portrait, taken with a colorful prism distorting my face.

View out one of our living room windows to the street, photographed through a filter that produces rainbows in the light.

My hand basking in one of the many rainbows that now travel through our living spaces in the afternoon.

Macro image of a rainbow bismuth crystal

Adventuring around Chicago - Summer 2020

For the last year or so, I had imagined that this summer would be one filled with celebration and travel since I completed grad school in May. The pandemic dramatically altered those plans. While it feels like a bit of a let down, I also recognize how incredibly fortunate I am these days: still employed, in good health, cohabitating with a wonderful partner and stress-relieving cat. I know this is not the case for many, and that reality is far, far worse than a lost summer of fun. So, I’m readjusting my expectations and am seeking opportunities for escape a little closer to home.

Our close friends live downstairs, and we’ve been part of the same pandemic bubble since day one. I’ve gone on a few outings with them, with my partner, and solo - masked and largely within state borders to protect ourselves and those around us. It’s pretty remarkable how much my perspective changed on my surroundings after spending 95% of my time in the same 1,000 square foot apartment, with only the occasional walk around the neighborhood or trip to the grocery store. What likely would have been fairly mundane trips now feel like so much more. This shift in perspective is welcome, and it’s an unexpected gift in the midst of so much pain and suffering. It’s a confusing mixture of feelings to hold at the same time. 

I also haven’t been taking as many photographs as I’d anticipated I might this year. The majority of the images I’ve taken have been around our apartment, unsurprisingly, but our trips have been one exception to that. Below are a few of those, a few tangible slices of life during this incredibly strange and difficult time.

A ride down to Bridgeport means stops to take photographs of the old factories and warehouses in the area

More Bridgeport sights

One last view from Bridgeport

A stop to admire the architecture in West Town after picking up coffee

Alley peeping around Winnemac

A solo stroll around Humboldt Park

A fitting mural at Empty Bottle

A beautiful day around Goose Island

It was strange going months without going downtown

Walking through Wicker Park after a trip to the dentist

Hospitals: terrifying before, even moreso now

Venturing into the suburbs

A rare indoor trip for specialty wood

Big Marsh on the south side of the city

More Big Marsh, excited to visit again soon to see changes in this work-in-progress park

Driving around the industrial far south side

More industrial sights, this time at Wolf Lake

Hosting an intern & MoCP field trip

This winter and spring, my department is hosting a wonderful intern, and one of the other managers and I have been co-mentoring her. We’ve based our curriculum for her time with us on the life of an image - the core functionality of our department - photography creation, image editing, metadata creation, and image management. In addition to getting hands-on experience in these different aspects of our daily work, we’ve also arranged a few field trips. The first was a behind-the-scenes look at the museum’s Thorne Miniature Rooms, since our intern is working to digitize archival material from that collection (amazing drawings of some of the furniture!). 

One of the Thorne Miniature Rooms

Our second trip took us to the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) just down the road from us. My fellow co-mentor worked at MoCP while she was in college, so she clued me into the fantastic offerings they have for scheduling a visit. In addition to viewing the rotating exhibits on display, visitors can request exhibition tours and print viewings. For the print viewings, which is the option we went with for our field trip, the curators have pulled together groups of prints around different themes. We selected two of these print collections: alternative processes and techniques, and picturing Chicago. When the staff who facilitated our discussion heard that we were coming from the Art Institute of Chicago, they ended up pulling additional selections - which was so wonderful!

The majority of our department ended up tagging along on our field trip, as did an intern and fellow from the Photography department and a staff member from the Publishing department at the museum. We began our visit by spending some time in the exhibit on display, In Real Life, which was thought-provoking:

“As the powerful technology behind artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated, machines have developed the capacity to not only capture images but to “see” them as well. In Real Life is an exhibition seeking to examine the real-world impact of computer vision—from the murky ethics of data collection and surveillance to the racial and gender biases that abound in facial recognition technology.

Through the lens of seven artists working with a range of digital media, In Real Life presents works that grapple with the fraught relationship between humans and technology, with an emphasis on the social and aesthetic ramifications of machine “seeing.” With a charged underpinning of human biases, these pieces, many of which were generated through algorithmic technology, present a speculative near-future wherein the socio-political consequences of AI have already begun to compromise how we visualize the world—and our humanity.”

Installation of works from In Real Life

We then gathered in the instructional space upstairs with a couple of MoCP staff and the prints. They invited us to take a closer look, and we then dove into conversations about each of the prints - the materiality and process, the concept, the history, and more. Given the range of types of photography, from straight documentary to highly conceptual, there was a lot of great discussion around each of the works. It felt like being back in art school in some ways, and I really enjoyed our time spent together viewing and talking about the prints.

We wrapped up our trip with a tour of some of their collection storage space, a lucky bonus since we were coming from another museum! The staff were gracious enough to tour us around and talk about some of the other prints that are in the museum’s collection. Our intern let us know that she enjoyed this part of the field trip in particular, and as someone who nerds out about collection storage space, my heart grew after hearing this.

Some of my favorite spaces in libraries, archives, and museums are where all of the materials are stored

I can’t believe this was my first trip to MoCP, after living in Chicago for 10 years. It certainly won’t be my last visit, though! A huge thanks to all the staff there, and to my co-mentor, for making this visit possible.

College Art Association 2020 conference

The College Art Association (CAA) held its annual conference in Chicago this year, and I was one of the fortunate staff who was able to attend from my museum. While many of the sessions were geared more towards those working in academia - especially college professors in arts and art history - I went to a number of sessions that dealt with photography, archives, and technology.

The role of photography in Los Angeles’ redevelopment

The first such session was entitled ‘Documenting Community Change,’ which addressed tension between renewal and preservation through a photographic lens. There were four panelists who presented - Documenting Urban Change as a Civil Wrong: A Case of Photographic Evidence in the Construction of the New York City Subway; Framing the Formless: Photography’s Urban Renewal in 1940s Los Angeles; A Pioneering Experiment: Documenting Urban Renewal in Hyde Park, Chicago; and The Bottom: The Interstate and Highways Defense Act & Segregation in Baton Rouge. The first presentation provided a wonderful early case study of how photography can be used in the court of law. The transcripts of the court proceedings underscored how photography may be conceived as evidence, as facts, and how subjectivity and creativity may obscure this objectivity. This feels like a challenge we still face today in how we conceive of lens-based images. The second and third presentations looked at cases where photography was an integral - and once again biased - way in which groups (a government branch or a university, in these cases) make their case for sweeping change. In both cases, photography was a tool used to “document” urban blight, and in Los Angeles, photo composites and graphic design then functioned as a stand-in to show what could replace this blight. The final presentation looked at a contemporary example of documenting shifting landscapes. This project featured community participation and demonstrated the power of lens-based media when it isn’t being used to capitalize off its subjects. I walked away from this session thinking a lot about photography, the photographic archive, and how viewers and researchers create meaning from images.

Transcript of court proceedings featuring discussion of the limitations of photography as evidence

I also attended a session organized by the Visual Resources Association (VRA) - ‘Hands-on to Eyes-on: From Material Collections to Digital Exhibitions.’ Each of the presenters discussed the ways in which their institutions have leveraged special collections in classrooms at their colleges or universities. At Minneapolis College of Art and Design, for example, there is an object library of raw materials, replicas, original historic materials, tools, and pigments that art history professors can integrate into lectures. This allows students to more fully understand artwork as objects - materiality, process, creation - in conjunction with intellectual and aesthetic aspects of artwork. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago features a related teaching collection in the form of a textiles resource center - with 400 objects and 2,000 supporting books - and fashion collection - with 1,400 garments and accessories, and supporting videos and books. While these materials are fairly accessible to students, and staff managing these collections are actively digitizing and creating robust metadata to increase access. The last presentation brought in staff and faculty from the University of Chicago to discuss how the university has leveraged its art museum, the Smart Museum of Art, to incorporate hands-on curatorial training for students. Over the course of two quarter-long classes, university students had the chance to design and install an exhibit around a topic of the group’s choice, work that included: proposing theme ideas, combing the Smart Museum of Art’s collection for pieces to include, and generating interpretive text. The students functioned as a curatorial cohort and worked directly with museum staff on all aspects of the exhibit. It was fascinating to hear about the collaboration - the ways in which the museum benefited from the students’ insights, especially as it related to how objects were categorized in their catalog, and the ways in which the students were exposed to a range of work in the field. It is exciting to think about all the potential in archive, library, and museum collections, and how these materials can be used in educational contexts.

Special fashion and textiles collections at SAIC

Two sessions I attended towards the end of the conference dove into the role of technology in digitized and digital collections. In ‘Beyond the Algorithm: Art Historians, Librarians, and Archivists in Collaboration on Digital Humanities Initiatives,’ presenters discussed the ways in which their institutions are evolving with ever-changing tools and user expectations. They discussed IIIF, machine learning, collaborative projects, and database technologies. Conversations around metadata really resonated with me, especially the challenges of classification, geodata, and how we document gaps in our knowledge. It is encouraging to think about how linked open data may help to some of this end, as ownership and contribution of knowledge can be collectivized. The last session I attended, ‘Defining Open Access,’ evaluated if and how institutions should make available online their digitized and digital collections. There were compelling arguments from a variety of perspectives, and it was helpful to get a better grasp on some of the challenges: the manpower required to do this work; copyright, privacy, and traditional knowledge concerns; inconsistent rights statements in image records; understanding that open access may result in images or data being used in ways institutions do not always like. I am an advocate for making as much information - whether it be in the form of images, text, or time-based media - available to our users, and these presentations gave me a more nuanced understanding of when this may not be possible. 

The conference also included optional field trips, and I am so happy that I decided to make the trek to the Harold Washington Library Center, the main branch of the Chicago Public Library, in order to tour their special collections. Archivist Michelle McCoy provided us with background information about the library and its special collections unit; the creator communities represented in the collections; and the prints, books, and objects she pulled to show us. I had no idea that the library had materials like sculptures, paintings, and miniature models in its holdings, and it’s so heartening to know that anyone can come in to view these materials. 

The research room for the special collections at the Harold Washington Library Center

I decided to attend the conference fairly spur of the moment, and I walked away having learned so much. I feel fortunate to live in a city which is often host to larger conferences like these, and I hope to attend more like this one in the future.

Open House Chicago 2019

This fall marked another fantastic Open House Chicago weekend. It has been challenging to plan and spend all weekend visiting sites in the last few years, due to grad school. Regardless, I had the chance to visit a number of sites with friends the day I was able to set aside for adventuring. We ended up biking around Garfield Park, the West Loop, Back of the Yards, Bronzeville, and made a pitstop in Chinatown for a snack. The variety of sites - their function, aesthetic, and age - made for an interesting blend, and it felt great to take some photographs for myself! I’m looking forward to next year and exploring more of this amazing city!

Great Lakes Yard was our first stop of the day

Next, we stopped at Revolution Workshop, which is neighbors with Great Lakes Yard

Lab on Lake is a beautiful industrial building turned church, nightclub, homeless shelter, and now event space.

The Hatchery is a purpose-built hub for food businesses

UE Hall features amazing murals that tell the story of unionization

Bubbly is a light-industrial small business incubator

IIT’s Kaplan Institute was our last stop

IPI Photographic Processes Identification Workshop

Last week, I attended a 3-day workshop in identifying photographic prints at the Chicago History Museum. Developed by the Image Permanence Institute, this was an intensive and incredibly helpful opportunity. Two staff from IPI led the sessions - Jae and Alice - and each day alternated between lectures and hands-on activities. After each lecture, we were able to work with the teaching collection, walking through the methodology we were taught to properly identify the images. This really helped to reinforce the ideas presented, especially by working with a partner to talk through what we were seeing.

Our first day was dedicated to an overview of the development and challenges in creating photographic images. The framework for the rest of the workshop was also established via an introduction to a visual identification guide. This checklist helps establish a methodology to looking with the aim of identification, by inspecting: image content, primary support, image color and tone, image deterioration, surface sheen, image structure (continuous tone or patterned), and layer structure. These visual cues align with the content of Graphics Atlas, an online resource provided by IPI. This way of walking through prints, starting with overall observations and gradually working towards magnification, proved to be very helpful throughout the sessions. They also discussed the earliest processes from the 19th century. We covered photographs on rigid supports - Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes - in addition to silver based printed-out prints on paper - salted paper, albumen, collodion, and gelatin prints.

19th century processes

The next day was spent reviewing non-silver based printed-out prints on paper - carbon, cyanotype, and platinum prints. The rest of the session was spent moving forward into the 20th century, focusing primarily on the most common black and white print form of the century - the silver gelatin developed-out print. After learning about this highly variable print type, Jae and Alice introduced us to color photographic prints - autochrome, carbro, dye imbibition, chromogenic, silver dye bleach, and diffusion transfer prints. We rounded out the day by reviewing the non-photographic counterpart to all the processes we had learned up to this point - photomechanical prints. These included Woodburytypes, photogravures, rotogravures, collotypes, letterpress halftone prints, and offset lithography prints.

Comparing bronzing with an overexposed POP print with silver mirroring on a degrading DOP print.

20th century process: silver gelatin DOP

The last day moved us into the 21st century and digital printing technologies - inkjet, electrophotography, and dye diffusion thermal transfer prints. We put all our knew knowledge to work by working through the identification of ten prints, which ranged from the earliest to the most contemporary processes. It could have been overwhelming, but knowing the steps helped guide the process. And it was just as helpful to incorrectly identify prints, as Jae and Alice then provided us with additional help on how to get to the right answer. My partner and I went through several packets of prints, and we felt fairly confident by the end! We also had the opportunity to look at some of the photographic prints in the collection at the Chicago History Museum. It was nice to ground everything we had learned with these samples - these are the types of prints we are likely to encounter in the future, and may have to identify without the assistance of our IPI experts.

Teaching collection test!

I went into the experience hoping to gain some greater understanding of print images, and I was floored by how much content we covered, and how effective the instruction and format of active learning were. I still have much to learn, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to get this crash-course in photographic (and photomechanical) print identification.

Print viewing in archival storage at the Chicago History Museum

Early processes in CHM’s collection

A later process in CHM’s collection

Oregon Historical Society - Mirror on the Modern Woman

We had the chance to visit the Oregon Historical Society in Portland last month. Though we spent the most time wandering through the permanent exhibit, we also happened upon a smaller photography exhibit that I enjoyed. It was located downstairs in a hallway space, so it felt like a great discovery when we started walking through it. The exhibit, Mirror on the Modern Woman: Selected Images from the Oregon Journal, 1927–1932, features portraits of modern female Oregonians, engaging in a variety of activities from a fairly broad cross-section of local society. What made these images even more engaging was the text that accompanied each - the story of these women, the headline or blurb that would have been published in the newspaper. This descriptive information helped to tell deeper stories behind the beautiful portraits, and it provided an important link back to the original source The Oregon Journal.

I was also excited that this exhibit developed as a result of a digitization project. From the website:

“This exhibit is inspired by ongoing work, funded by a generous grant from the Jackson Foundation, to digitize the research library’s collection of 9,000 nitrate negatives from the Oregon Journal. The Portland newspaper, an afternoon daily published from 1902 to 1982, was one of the largest papers in the state and a competitor to The Oregonian. The stunning original images date from approximately the mid-1920s to the early 1930s and have not previously been made accessible to the public. They provide a vivid look at people, places, and topics that journalists of that era found newsworthy. The vibrant breadth of life preserved in these photographs highlights the value of the state’s newspapers as historical resources: they serve as mirrors that reflect expansive views into Oregon’s past.”

It’s wonderful to see work like this being highlighted, to increase awareness about these types of collections and to increase access through physical exhibitions.

"These unidentified dancers were probably performing in a May Day celebration in Portland, Oregon. May Day festivities were common during this era, with celebrations put on by towns, businesses, organizations, and schools."

"When the Portland YWCA opened registration for spring sports classes in April 1927, Lillian Blackman and Sophia Wehrly posed for a photograph with field hockey equipment. Field hockey "is not very well known generally," the Journal reported, noting that the YWCA would supply the equipment for the hockey class. "It is a sport which provides vigorous exercise." Blackman and Wehrly are on the roof of what is likely the YWCA building at SW Taylor and Broadway. Visible in the background is the Jackson Tower, where the Oregon Journal offices were located from 1912 to 1948. The YWCA building was demolished in 1959." 

"Mrs. D.W. Barnes of Portland celebrated her 90th birthday on June 27, 1928 by taking her first ride in an airplane. Her son E.L. Barnes (possibly the man on the left) accompanied her in a Ryan monoplane flown by pilot Gordon Mounce (possibly the man in the background). More than two dozen family members and friends turned out to watch. Mrs. Barnes was an avid follower of aviation news, the Journal reported in a brief article, and had been planning the flight for quite a while. At the end of it, she "landed breathless and pleased," the Journal reported."

"An unidentified performer with the Al G. Barnes Circus demonstrates her skills on horseback during one of the circus's stops in Portland. The Barnes circus performed regularly in Portland and throughout the Pacific Northwest."

"Stunt pilot Dorothy Hester was probably around age nineteen when she posed next to a plan for this photograph. Hester, from Milwaukie, Oregon, learned to fly at the Rankin School of Flying in Portland. She impressed Tex Rankin, and he taught her aerobatics. In June 1930, at age nineteen, she became the first woman to perform a stunt called an outside loop. Hester wowed audiences both in Oregon and at air shows around the nation, set world records for stunt flying, and opened her own flight school. She left her career in aviation after marrying in 1934."