Portland Camera Club records
Scope and Content note
This collection documents the activities of the Portland Camera Club and its members. Contents include meeting minutes, correspondence, financial records, promotional material, publications, essays, research, news clippings, scrapbooks, photographic prints, negatives, slides, and glass lantern slides. The collection reflects the founding, governance, management, and programs of the club, as well as the photography of its members.
Dates
- Creation: 1885 - 2021
Creator
- Portland Camera Club (Portland, Me.) (Donor, Organization)
- Whipple, Leyland, 1881-1970 (Person)
- Richardson, Edward T., 1921-2016 (Person)
- Libby, Francis Orville, 1881-1961 (Person)
- Kirkwood, David A. (Person)
Access
Unrestricted
Copyright
Access to collections at Maine Historical Society is not an authorization to publish. Rights and reproduction requests may be submitted in writing to the MHS Image Services Coordinator or Research & Administrative Librarian, subject to format.
Administrative note
On May 24, 1899, 36 charter members formed the Portland Camera Club (PCC) in Portland, Maine. The club rented its first space at 571½ Congress Street in 1903, and outfitted the rooms with a portrait camera and studio, darkroom, and exhibition space. In 1909, the Portland Society of Art (PSA), a group of professional and amateur artists newly-based in the McClellan-Sweat mansion, invited the PCC to merge with their society. For the next 55 years, PCC was the Photographic Section of the PSA and met on the third floor of the mansion.
In the early years of the club, lantern slides were the favored medium of members. Projected onto a screen, and sometimes hand painted, they could be colorful and luminous. During this period, many members experimented with pictorialism, a technique that emphasized the artistry of photography and was characterized by soft focus, low contrast, and added texture. By the late 1920s, however, the salon print was the preferred format and club members were moving away from pictorialism.
From its inception, the PCC held weekly meetings at which members shared and commented on each other’s work. Regular salons (juried competitions) were held with other regional and national clubs, including those forming the New England Camera Club Council. Salon prints were mailed around the country for exhibits and competitions, amassing stickers on mat backs that tracked the prints’ journeys. In the 1950s, PCC hosted an international salon, a major undertaking for the club. By 1964, the club had amicably dissolved its relationship with the PSA, today’s Portland Museum of Art, and eventually moved to South Portland.
Today, the club remains one of the oldest camera clubs in the United States. Members still meet weekly for much of the year.
Biographical note
The collection highlights the work and contributions of four PCC members.
Francis Orville Libby (1881-1961). A nationally renowned photographer and Maine’s leading pictorialist, Libby was a member of the PCC from 1907 until his death, and club president for a time. A fine arts graduate of Princeton University, he was also a prolific painter. A collection of his prints was held for decades by the PCC; some are now part of the PMA’s collection.
Leyland C. Whipple (1881-1970). Leyland Whipple was a Bangor, Maine, photographer, long-time PCC member, composer, high school band leader, and quality control technician at the Portland Company. In his youth, he was a flautist with the Boston Latin School orchestra and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mandolin club.
Ethel Wight (1885-1975). The first woman to join the PCC, in 1932, Ethel Wight was an artist and photographer. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and worked at the Kahill Photo Studio. In 1934, she opened her own studio, Wight Studio, on Congress Street. In 1927, she photographed Charles Lindbergh with this plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, shortly after his historic transatlantic flight.
Edward T. Richardson (1921-2016). Edward Richardson was a Bowdoin College graduate, attended the University of Paris after serving overseas during WWII, and graduated from Northeastern University Law School in 1950. During his many decades practicing law in Portland, Richardson focused on conservation and served on the boards of various land conservation organizations. A passionate photographer and active PCC member for over 50 years, Richardson served as president, treasurer, and trustee over the years, and was recipient of the club's lifetime achievement award.
Additionally, a significant portion of the lantern slides in Subseries 3.2 were created by the following photographer whose collection was gifted to PCC, though he was not a member.
Dr. Frederick E. Pottle (1865-1933). Dr. Pottle was born in Bangor, Me. A dentist, he lived in Europe for over two decades, returning to live in Yarmouth, Me., in the late 1920s. While in Europe, Dr. Pottle created hundreds of hand-colored lantern slides which he left to his sister, Alice Pottle Hart. Alice Hart eventually gifted the slides to Irma Sawyer, who presented them to the PCC in the late 1970s.
Extent
18 Linear Feet (28 boxes + 1 oversize folder)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
The collection is arranged in three series.
- 1. Papers, 1894-2021
- 2. Publications, 1903-1943
- 3. Photographs, 1885-2010
Provenance
Gift of the Portland Camera Club, July 16, 2024 (acc. no. 2024.119).
Processing note
Club records and papers arrived in bankers’ boxes, photographic prints in large travel cases, and lantern slides in cardboard and wooden custom-made boxes. The papers' original order was retained where evident, though some folders were combined. Records were removed from binders and rehoused in folders. News clippings were photocopied and originals not retained. Research notes compiled by David Kirkwood were, for the most part, separated into Subseries 1.2, though as the keeper of the club’s records for years his notes are peppered throughout.
Matted salon prints and large promotional material were arranged by type and/or photographer and housed in flat boxes. Photographic prints, negatives, and slides were housed together, as were publications collected and maintained by the club. Oversize prints were housed in a shared collections flat file drawer.
Lantern slides were sleeved individually and arranged by subject, whenever identified or apparent. These slides are described at the group level.
A selection of framed items and club artifacts, such as stamps, medals, and a lantern slide projector, were added to the museum collection. These items can be located using the MHS museum catalog.
Subject
- Wight, Ethel, 1885-1975 (Person)
- Title
- Guide to the Portland Camera Club records
- Status
- In Progress
- Author
- Jordis Rosberg, MHS Archivist, September-November 2024
- Date
- October 10, 2024
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Maine Historical Society Repository