Beyond its collections and exhibitions, Whatcom Museum houses a unique community treasure: an expansive archive of more than 200,000 historical images, acquired from multiple photographers and collectors. The collection preserves important chapters of local history, from Whatcom County’s logging heyday to the Vaudeville era, and even quotidian life as captured by 20th-century photojournalists such as Jack Carver.
Whatcom Museum’s upcoming gala, “Archival Revival,” is a nod to these photo archives. Proceeds for the Sept. 13 event will help fund the museum’s programs and exhibitions — including the revitalization of Old Fire Station No. 1, where the archives are located.
“It’s a really important event for us,” Executive Director Patricia Leach said. She underlined that, while the City of Bellingham owns the Whatcom Museum’s facilities and collections, the nonprofit Whatcom Museum Foundation raises the money for all the exhibitions and programs.
The first floor of Old Fire Station No. 1 (formerly the Syre Education Center, next to Old City Hall) closed to the public in 2009 amid the great recession. For the next few years, the space was used as an education center for school groups and private events.
Right now Leach said visiting the second-floor photo archives is akin to “going to a speakeasy,” with Whatcom Museum’s historian and archivist Jeff Jewell acting as the doorman. Visitors enter by ringing a bell in the museum’s alley, then climbing a long flight of stairs. “We want to make the photographs more accessible,” she continued.
Thus, the museum plans to reopen the first floor of Old Fire Station No. 1 in the coming years. The revitalized space will include a more easily-accessed “storefront” for the archives, as well as research rooms and new permanent exhibitions. What’s more, the archive’s physical ephemera — including negatives, slides, prints, brochures, maps and posters — will move to a storage wing with improved climate control.
Community members can see these archives displayed at the Sept. 13 gala. Leach described it as a night of “delicious food and entertainment”, featuring a silent auction and performances from The Upfront Theatre, violinist Swil Kanim, storyteller Julie Trimingham and the salsa dancers of ¡Casineros del Parque!. Attendees are encouraged to dress in black and white in honor of the photo archives.
As for Leach’s favorite collection in the archives? She’s partial to photographs by Darius and Tabitha Kinsey, a husband-and-wife team who documented logging in the Pacific Northwest.
“The immensity of those trees is amazing, and that collection is known worldwide,” she said. “I know we take orders from Japan, Australia, other countries. [Documentary filmmaker] Ken Burns has accessed it many times, and that, to me, is wonderful.”
Marketing and Public Relations Director Adrienne Dawson loves James Warwick’s collection of Vaudeville images, many of which will be featured in a mural planned for the side of Old Fire Station No. 1. This includes portraits of performers like Myrtle Fischer, originally from Bellingham, who is featured on the event’s invitation.
Jewell, however, has a hard time picking just one image — though he’s struck by photographs of recognizable streets and buildings. In his view, historic photos can lend even deeper meaning to sites folks already know and love.
“[Local history] is so much more immediate and personal in many ways, because these same places are a part of your life, and were a part of people’s lives in the past,” Jewell said. “We share that commonality of place, and that’s what the photos have — and what would be lost if they were gone.”
Archival Revival tickets are on sale now at whatcommuseum.maestroweb.com. The Photo Archives research room has public hours from 1–5 p.m. Wednesday–Friday at the Syre Education Center (201 Prospect St.). Visit whatcommuseum.org to learn more.
Cocoa Laney is CDN’s lifestyle editor; reach her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.
