Historic Hood River
Davidson Collection
Notes
We’ve enjoyed many photos from the “Davidson Collection” which includes 525 negatives from about 1910-1920. Well it turns out there was a bit more to the collection than Matt and I knew.
When we received the collection it was in modern envelopes, having been scanned and printed sometime in the last decade. Recently our archives folks discovered the original envelopes and sleeves which Ella May Davidson herself used to organize the collection. It includes a treasure trove of notes indicating subjects and dates, but as you might imagine trying to match 525 negatives with handwritten notes is not easy. Here’s a single page of notes. You may recognize line #23 matches this image, or line #17 matched this one.
if you look at the left margin you can see an indication of who took which image. This confirms my suspicion there were several photographers responsible for the collection, though the majority seem to be from Ella May Davidson herself. I feel a special kinship with her because her “shack” (line 12) was on Hazel Street just a few yards from my house.
If someone’s looking for a project for next winter, I can give you all 525 image scans and scans of all the envelopes to match up. I’m sure it will provide many hours of historical fun!
L.E.
You always lecture us to make detailed notes about our photographs. I don’t think you could get much more detailed than this.
Is this the "shack"?
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=332
It would be a fascinating job to sort this out, but a tough one. There is a photo labeled "In Big Snow", but there is more than one Davidson photo of a big snow.
Arthur
Yes, L.E., I believe that was Ella May Davidson’s "shack" on Hazel Street, as viewed from the stairs.