How to Do Research in the Photograph Archives

Christy Eckerle, Associate Editor of Montana The Magazine of Western History


In a collection of more than 500,000 historic photos, how do you find the one perfect photo you want? I face this quandary every day. As an associate editor for Montana The Magazine of Western History, it’s my job to gather the historic photos that illustrate each article.


This sign stood by the highway near Eureka, Montana, a

t the height of the region’s Christmas tree boom. Richard

C. Shirley, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives, Helena,

PAc 99-34 p. 28 24a

Our forthcoming Winter 2016 issue features an article about western Montana’s Christmas tree industry, which boomed between 1926 and the 1950s with much of the activity centered around the town of Eureka. So, I had to find photographs of people cutting and shipping Christmas trees near Eureka in the twentieth century.


Luckily, the Photograph Archives here at the Montana Historical Society are a treasure trove of historic images. I started my search with the Research Center’s marvelous online catalog. I typed “Christmas tree” and narrowed my results to photos. The eight results included photos of Christmas trees at celebrations, but nothing of the industry itself. So, I tried searching “Eureka.” Among descriptions of photos of the local baseball team and postcards of the town, I found a collection called “Tobacco Valley News photos.” The description read: “Photographs taken to document information and events for the Tobacco Valley Newspaper of Eureka, Montana.”


Lois Workman ties trees at the J. Hofert Christmas Tree Company yard,

circa 1950s.  Richard C. Shirley, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives,

Helena, PAc 99-34 4x5

Jackpot.


With the catalog number of the collection (PAc 99-34) jotted down on a scratch paper, I headed for the Photograph Archives.
Handing a catalog number to an archivist is like handing a claim ticket to an infinitely knowledgeable valet. The archivist whisks the boxes you desire from their temperature-controlled storage room, sets them on a reading table, and hands you a pair of gloves.


The collection, “Tobacco Valley News photos,” is an unprocessed collection. Unprocessed means that no archivist has yet done his or her scientific and thorough sorting, arranging, and indexing of it. The collection remains in the disorganized state it was in when the donor dropped it off and the archivist plunked it into an acid-free Gaylord box.


Side note: most archives have many unprocessed collections—the culprit is understaffing and underfunding. Archivists spend much of their time helping us eager yet uninformed researchers answer questions like “Do you have any photos of cowboys?” (The answer, by the way, is: “We have several thousand. Can you be more specific?”) Even the most dedicated archivist has only so much time to divide between helping patrons and cataloging collections. So, should you ever run into the maddening phrase unprocessed collection in your research, instead of getting upset, consider donating to help solve the problem.

Jim Fuller’s family works together to bale Christmas trees at the

G. R. Kirk Tree Company yard in Eureka, circa October 1969.

Steve Shirley, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives, Helena,

PAc 99-34 p. 25 17a

Anyway, I had a strong hunch that the collection of Tobacco Valley News photos contained images of the Christmas tree industry. With no index to guide me, I sorted through photo by photo. And my hunch proved right. I found scores of images of people cutting, baling, and shipping Douglas fir trees.


The only remaining problem was that many of these photographs were unidentified. No dates, locations, or names were listed. I could, of course, sift through decades of the Tobacco Valley News on microfilm to try to find the photos with their original captions. But, I was saved from this daunting task by serendipity.

Workers load Christmas trees on a Great Northern Railway

freight car at the Eureka station, November or December 1972.

Richard C. Shirley, photographer, MHS Photograph Archives,

Helena, PAc 99-34 p. 324 9

While I was looking through the collection, the son of the former editor of the Tobacco Valley News walked into the Photograph Archives reading room. How such a coincidence is possible, that he should drive down from Eureka on the very day that I was looking at his father’s photographs, I don’t know. But he identified all the unidentified photographs that I wanted.


So, after my determined searching with the help of an archivist and a lot of luck, when Montana The Magazine of Western History subscribers open up their Winter issue in a few weeks, they’ll see these marvelous photos with captions chalk-full of information—not only about western Montana’s Christmas tree industry, but also about the people who worked it.


P.S. If you’d like to receive Montana, you can subscribe online or by calling (406) 444-4708.


P.P.S If you want to do research at the Montana Historical Society but can’t make it in person, you can submit a research request, and one of our talented staff members will help you.

EXTRA! Montana Newspaper Stories 1864-1922: Helen Piotopowaka (The Bird That Comes Home) Clarke

Born the daughter of a prominent Scottish-American and his Blackfeet wife, Helen (Nellie) Piotopowaka Clarke spent most of her childhood at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, returning to Montana a polished and well-educated young woman. She worked as an actress, a schoolteacher, and an Indian agent for the U.S. government. She was the first woman elected to public office in Montana, becoming the superintendent of public schools for Lewis and Clark County at age 38.

Key dates

1846—Born at the mouth of the Judith River.
1869—Father murdered by a group of Blackfeet men.
1875—Takes a teaching position in Helena.
1884—Elected Superintendent of Schools for Lewis and Clark County.
1889—Leaves Montana to work for the Indian Bureau as an allotment agent.
1909—With her brother, Horace, is granted tribal membership and allotments.
1923—Dies at East Glacier Park Village, Montana.

From the newspapers

• Particular of the Murder of Malcolm Clarke, The New North-west, August 27, 1869, p. 2.
• City and County, The Bozeman Weekly Chronicle, September 10, 1884, p. 3.
• Sunbeams, Sun River Sun, October 30, 1884, p. 2.
• Amateur Theatricals, The Semi-weekly Miner, December 5, 1885, p. 4.
• A Child of the Howling West, The Bozeman Weekly Chronicle, June 30, 1886, p. 4.
• Official Count, Butte Semi-weekly Miner, November 13, 1886, p. 2.
• City and State, The River Press, October 21, 1905, p. 5.
• City and State, The River Press, October 28, 1903, p. 6.
• Local Notes, The Whitefish Pilot, April 27, 1911, p. 5.
• Another Move Made to Open Blackfeet Reservation, Cut Bank Pioneer Press, November 19, 1915, p. 1.
• Showings of Copper Ore Found in Swift Current Creek in 1894 Resulted in Purchase of Land Which Later Became Glacier Park, Great Falls Tribune, June 5, 1921, p. 12.

To find more

Search for these terms in combination, proximity, or as phrases: helen clarke, nellie clarke, malcolm clarke, horace clarke

Montana Historical Society Archives Receives Grant to Start the Montana Brewery Oral History Project

Anneliese Warhank, C.A., Archivist/Oral Historian

With a $4,500 grant from Humanities Montana, MHS begins the initial phases of a project aimed at capturing the stories of Montana’s current brewing industry. The Montana Brewery Oral History Project will capture and record the history of Montana’s modern brewing industry from the last decades of the 20th century through 2008; the point the craft beer movement began to reemerge in the state, up to the creation of the Montana Brewers Association. As an archivist/oral historian, you might be wondering why I’d feel the need to build an entire project around this topic.

Montana’s brewing history runs deep, stretching all the way back to the territory’s first mining camps. Although prohibition and the rise of the domestic beers brought Montana’s craft brewing industry to a complete halt by the 1960’s, the 1980’s saw a new generation of brewers emerge. It was at this point that Montana’s modern craft brewing industry began to flourish into what many of us know and love today. Anyone who has spent just a short time in the state should be quick to recognize Montanans’ appreciation for local, craft beer. Craft breweries dot the landscape, while mom and pop as well as national chain grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores devote large sections of cooler space to Montana made brews.  Not to mention that if the local eatery offers beer on tap, it likely traces its origin to the community or county. Montanans love their beer as much as their big sky.

from the "Breweries, Montana" Ephemera file
Montana Historical Society
Photo courtesy of Natasha Hollenbach

Since legislation was passed in the 1999 session allowing breweries to operate taprooms, the state has seen steady growth in number of breweries. This has promoted job growth in some economically stagnated communities and increased demand in Montana agricultural products necessary for the production of craft beer. These breweries and their adjoining taprooms have become cultural hubs, with many hosting community events, raising funds for local non-profits, and serving as a communal center for local citizens and their families. Montana breweries have impacted the state economically, politically, and socially; as such, the oral history project will address all three topics, to some degree, with the selection of the narrators.  

The project will capture up to twenty oral histories from individuals who played a significant role in the development of the industry in Montana, selected by a five member board still in development. This project will provide insightful and valuable information for the academic and lay person alike who have an interest in Montana’s craft brewing history. The recordings and transcripts created through this project will become part of the permanent collections of the Montana Historical Society Research Center and will be accessible to the public for research and study. MP3 recordings of the oral histories will also be made available via the Montana Historical Society’s digital collections website. Upon completion of these interviews, I will begin phase two of the project, which will focus on the industry from 2008, to the present.

Great Falls and the Anaconda Copper Company

by Barbara Pepper-Rotness, Library Technician

Of course, we know that images evoke different responses depending upon the perspective of the viewer. Just as a painting may be pleasing, puzzling, or even off-putting, a photographic image contains elements that may or may not draw us in for a closer look. However, providing context for and a description of those elements may spark an interest we never anticipated.

Transformers at Zinc Electrolytic Substation. [Great Falls, Montana] January 29, 1920.

Catalog #PAc 81-34.2577

The Anaconda Copper Company Photograph Collection [PAc 81-34] includes images of smelting and refining copper and of the electrolytic zinc plant in Great Falls, Montana - not your typical ‘pretty’ pictures. However, Lory Morrow, Manager of the MHS Photo Archives, notes that the predominantly glass negative collection doesn’t just capture the day-to-day functions of an ore processing plant. It also contains images of people at work and play, along with wonderful views of the city of Great Falls and of the Missouri River over the course of sixty years.

First Aid Contest - A. C. M. [Anaconda Copper Mining] Club Orchestra, [Great Falls, Montana]. June 23, 1928.

Catalog #PAc 81-34.3059

To help researchers access this photograph collection, volunteer Anthony Schrillo, a retired mechanical engineer, is entering data found in record books provided by the ACM concerning over five thousand negatives in a Microsoft Access database. With the negative number, the title and description of each image, and the date the photo was taken, we get a visual record of the entire operation - machinery, supplies, buildings, and more - specific to the industrial complex at Great Falls between 1900 and 1958.  The work involved in cataloging this great collection will enable us to delve more deeply into a significant aspect of Montana’s history.

Built in 1892 under the auspices of the Boston and Montana Company (B&M Co.), the Great Falls plant originally conducted the full spectrum of copper ore processing. However, by 1910, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company had acquired the B&M Co. and set out to reorganize its operations. Gradually phasing out the pre-refining processes of concentrating and smelting, the Great Falls plant began specializing in the refining aspects of copper processing and added an electrolytic zinc plant in 1919. (MC 169 Historical Note)
                                                   
During that same year, construction of the Washoe Smelter in Anaconda was completed. In addition to designing the Great Falls smelter twenty-seven years earlier, Frank Klepetko (MC 389 Biographical Note) designed the tallest (585 feet) brick structure in the world at the time. It is believed that the Washoe Smelter - “The Stack” - still holds that record and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Gen. [General] View of Plant From Across River (File card: "… of Plant From South East From …"), 

[Great Falls, Montana]. July 18, 1928.

Catalog #PAc 81-34.3076

Unfortunately, the Great Falls stack was demolished on September 18, 1982 and nothing remains of any building in the once vast complex. However, with the aid of this photograph collection and its descriptive text, we can learn much about its different phases of operation. Depicting the people, the place, and the processes of this industrial facility over the years, we may be inspired to take a closer look at this rich photograph collection and its ancillary collections*.

*For further investigation, the Anaconda Mining Company archival collection, MC169, provides much documentation about the company’s history and the people who worked there, including a list of employees who were missing or were killed in World War II action. For those Anaconda, Butte, and Great Falls employees not on the battlegrounds of that war, the Copper Commando  newsletter was published to illustrate the importance of their contribution to the war effort and features stories and images of employees, housewives, and schoolchildren.

Additionally, you can see the demolition of the Great Falls stack by watching this KRTV program.

EXTRA! Montana Newspaper Stories 1864-1922: Montana Tech's founding

The Enabling Act of 1889, which created the State of Montana, provided for the establishment of a school of mines. Although the proposal faced controversy in the state legislature, the Montana School of Mines finally opened its doors to a class of 21 in 1900. The sole cost of attendance for a Montana resident was the $5 registration fee.

Key dates

1889—The federal Enabling Act appropriates 100,000 acres of public land for a school of mines.
1893—The state legislature appropriates $15,000 for the creation of the School of Mines in or near Butte; however, bank failures in Helena prevent construction from starting.
March 1895—State representative Howard Paschal’s bill, providing solid funding for the school, is approved.
December 1896—Cornerstone laid in Butte.
1897—Complaints and charges of fraud slow construction.
1900—Both female and male students start classes.

From the newspapers

• For the School of Mines, Great Falls Tribune, April 21, 1893, p. 7
• Not a Sod Yet Turned, Anaconda Standard, June 03, 1894, p. 5
• The School of Mines, Anaconda Standard, February 18, 1895, p. 4
• State School of Mines, Anaconda Standard, March 12, 1895, p. 5
• It May Be Erected, Anaconda Standard, November 02, 1895, p. 8
• Corner Stone Laid, Anaconda Standard, December 30, 1896, p. 7
• Charges of Fraud, Anaconda Standard, May 17, 1897, p. 8
• School of Mines, Billings Gazette, January 06, 1899, p. 3
• A Step Forward, Anaconda Standard, December 08, 1899, p. 6

To find more

Search for these terms in combination, proximity, or as phrases: school of mines, howard paschal, n.r. leonard

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Written by Catherine W. Ockey