This is the first book-length exploration of nineteenth-century photography in Washington State. Each chapter features intriguing facts, stories, and images that bring to life this rich part of photographic history from the territory's earliest days to the state's emergence as an economic power in the twentieth century.
The book features:
- 280 pages / 9 chapters
- 203 photographs & illustrations
- Chronological histories by decade
- Thematic studies of landscapes, portraits, and images of Native Peoples
In addition to tracing the development of Washington photography in a direct chronological timeline, the author explores key themes that illuminate the social, economic, and physical aspects of the state's growth as seen through dozens of rarely seen photographs.
As a latecomer to the Union, Washington and photography matured together. Photographers captured nearly every aspect of the state's social, economic, and physical growth. They also reflected the challenges of bringing the new medium of photography to the remoteness of the Pacific Northwest.
Unlike books about Washington's history that are illustrated with photographs, the author writes about how the accomplishments of individual photographers reflected the evolution of the state. As photography evolved from a scientific tool into a communications medium, it turned into a mirror of humanity, reflecting its unique ability to capture an instant in time that ultimately becomes timeless.
Tim Greyhavens is a historian of photography based in Seattle. His research centers on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photographers in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He previously published articles about Edward Curtis on Mount Rainier, Eadweard Muybridge's 1871 trip to photograph lighthouses on the Washington Coast, and the earliest photography boats in America. He is a life-long "photographist" (an early name for photographers), having published his first picture in a newspaper when he was sixteen years old.
"An independent historian of the Pacific Northwest presents a well-researched account of how photography developed alongside settlements that would become Washington state.
Well-illustrated, delightfully told, and shrewdly cited, Greyhavens’ work is a masterpiece of local history. With a natural storytelling voice, the author takes readers through the delightful world of late 19th-century photography, interspersing dense explanations of photographic processes with colorful descriptions of the people who used them, beginning with the Prosch family, who began their association with the art as owners of a daguerreotype gallery in Newark, New Jersey; they would later come to own the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “a powerhouse of photojournalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” Greyhavens doesn’t shy away from the the impact of European settlement on Indigenous peoples in the American West. As such, Greyhavens features photographs of many Indigenous subjects and explains how they were taken with an impressive level of detail, drawing on archival material. Indeed, the author’s rich, varied, and well-organized bibliography effectively reveals the thoroughness and high quality of his research. Overall, this is compelling survey of Washington state’s history with an emerging artistic and technological medium.
A punctilious Western photo history that focuses on a turbulent time of political and social change." -- KIRKUS REVIEWS
