Highlights Archives
Unique Milwaukee Photo Archive Acquired
Joseph Brown (1851-1928) was a commercial photographer in Milwaukee whose work had all but vanished from sight until the Wisconsin Historical Society acquired and digitized it earlier this year. For several decades Brown and his sons took hundreds of pictures of Milwaukee streets, apartment buildings, docks, shipping, parks, railroad yards, factories, and other urban sites for reasons that are not clear. The images may have been contract work for property owners, insurers or other parties who wanted a documentary record. Despite his decades of work and volume of output, Brown's work generally escaped the notice of curators at Wisconsin's cultural institutions. After his death in 1928 and the dissolution of the firm after World War II, his archive of 8-by-10-inch glass-plate negatives fell into private hands.
The pictures that Brown and his sons created between 1890 and 1945 passed through a succession of collectors until Chicago photographer Tom Yanul obtained them and contacted the Society. Yanul made paper prints for reference purposes and invited Andy Kraushaar and Helmut Knies of the Society's staff to examine the original negatives in the fall of 2006. What they found was a Milwaukee image archive almost entirely unknown to researchers. Only a handful of Brown's photos could be found in any institutions, and no curators or archivists seemed to know anything about his career.
With the very generous assistance of the Wisconsin Preservation Fund, Kraushaar and Knies purchased the collection from Yanul early in 2007. Once relocated to Madison, the 239 glass plates (and a few nitrate negatives) were carefully inventoried and rehoused in acid-free containers. The original negatives were also digitized and added to Wisconsin Historical Images, the Society's online visual materials collection, where researchers can now see them for the first time and order high-quality reproductions.
Among the highlights of the Brown collection are dozens of architectural views, scenes of streets, parks, the harbor and shipping, industrial sites, and even a few rural scenes. Milwaukee historian John Gurda, author (most recently) of Cream City Chronicles, is examining the photographs individually to help the Society identify specific buildings and localities.
Have a look through the entire collection, and if you see places that you recognize, send us a note through the "Email us" link at the bottom of any page so we can add your knowledge to the description of the item.
:: Posted July 5, 2007
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