Alton H. Blackington Photograph Collection
A native of Rockland, Maine, Alton H. “Blackie” Blackington (1893-1963) was a writer, photojournalist, and radio personality associated with New England “lore and legend.” After returning from naval service in the First World War, Blackington joined the staff of the Boston Herald, covering a range of current events, but becoming well known for his human interest features on New England people and customs. He was successful enough by the mid-1920s to establish his own photo service, and although his work remained centered on New England and was based in Boston, he photographed and handled images from across the country. Capitalizing on the trove of New England stories he accumulated as a photojournalist, Blackington became a popular lecturer and from 1933-1953, a radio and later television host on the NBC network, Yankee Yarns, which yielded the books Yankee Yarns (1954) and More Yankee Yarns (1956).
This collection of glass plate negatives was purchased by Robb Sagendorf of Yankee Publishing around the time of Blackington’s death. Reflecting Blackington’s photojournalistic interests, the collection covers a terrain stretching from news of public officials and civic events to local personalities, but the heart of the collection is the dozens of images of typically eccentric New England characters and human interest stories. Most of the images were taken by Blackington on 4×5″ dry plate negatives, however many of the later images are made on flexible acetate stock and the collection includes several images by other (unidentified) photographers distributed by the Blackington News Service.
Background on Alton H. Blackington
Professor Braganza
The photojournalist, writer, and radio celebrity Alton Hall Blackington, known to his friends as “Blackie,” was a beloved interpreter of New England culture, covering news and personalities with the flair of a story-teller. The son of quarryman Fuller Cook Blackington and his wife Ida B. (Smith), Blackington was born on November 25, 1893, and raised in Rockland, a town on the central coast of Maine. Educated through high school, he enlisted as a yeoman in the Naval Reserve in April 1918, spending his sixteen months in service as the official photographer of the First Naval District in Boston, a fortunate break for his future career.
Parlaying the skills he acquired in the military and drawing upon an extraordinary combination of ingenuity, self-promotion, and ambition, Blackington built a remarkable career. Upon leaving the service in 1919, he crossed the city to secure a position as staff photographer with the Boston Herald. During ten years there, he built a popular following for his personal photographic style, and especially for his quirky choice of subject matter. The quality of his work and his experiments in color photography earned him the distinction of being named a Master Craftsman by the Society of Arts in Crafts in 1925.
From early in his career, Blackington did more than simply cover local news and the arrivals and departures of celebrities and politicians, he began to capture the range of distinctive personalities that he saw as definitive of New England character. His photographic vision extended to include hermits and eccentrics, skilled craftspeople, and the living relics of old traditions, including lighthouse keepers, whalers, and the last living town crier.
While expanding his range as a photographer, Blackington also branched into a startling range of creative pursuits. Always entrepreneurial, he established the Blackington Photographic Service during the 1920s to distribute photographic content to news outlets and advertisers, handling not only his own work, but the work of other photographers. He also began to draw on his literary talents, writing for the news, and in keeping with a separate interest, serving as editor for Fire Fighting, the magazine of the New England Association of Fire Chiefs.
Perhaps most famously, Blackington became to build a following as a lecturer by the late 1920s, giving illustrated talks that famously combined color images with colorful tales. His earliest lectures were often based on stories of his life as a press photographer, the “romance” of the press, and his intimate knowledge of the news business, as well as current events, natural disasters, adventure travel, and an eclectic array of other topics. He soon became better known, however, for his stories of New England “characters” and his sometimes folksy and eccentric tales of New England life.
Blackington’s popularity on the lecture circuit attracted the notice of WNAC and WEAN radio, which offered him a weekly show in 1933. “Yankee Yarns” became the center of his fame and his bread and butter for over two decades. With his subtle Down East accent lending credibility, and a casual air and ear for a good tale, Blackington became known as “an authority on little-known New England stories,” as a WNAC promotional blurb put it in 1937. A critical and popular success, Yankee Yarns was awarded a Peabody Award in 1948 and scripts for the shows were in such high demand that Blackington edited several to produce two books, Yankee Yarns (1954) and More Yankee Yarns (1956).
Blackington was married twice, first to Marion Tresel Pyne in about 1922, with whom he had one son, and second, in 1939, to Alice Powers. A longtime resident of Lynn, Mass., and a member of the Lynn Post 291 of the American Legion, Blackington moved to nearby Beverly Farms in about 1952. He continued to work in radio for into the mid-1950s and as a writer for several more years. He died in April 1963 and is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Rockland, Maine.
Contents of Collection
The hundreds of photographs in the Blackington Collection represent a cross-section of work of one of the most intriguing photojournalists of interwar Boston. Covering subjects stretching from breaking news to popular culture, local political life, civic events, and human interest stories, the images are a reflection of a distinctive regional culture that Blackington saw as persisting, perilously, in a time of rapid change. Although primarily a documentary photographer, Blackington’s narrative eye and appreciation for the eccentricities of New Englanders and the vestiges of its long past made his work a valuable resource for his lectures, stories, and radio show.
The majority of Blackington’s work consists of dry plate glass negatives, although he switched gradually to flexible acetate stock by the late 1930s. Some unclear, but relatively small percentage of the collection clearly represents the work of other, unidentified photographers. In both his work with newspapers and with the Photographic Service, Blackington often copied the work of other photographers, using a frame to hold prints during rephotography. Furthermore, some of the images in the collection appear to have purchased by Blackington for distribution through his News Service.
The Blackington images were part of a larger collection purchased at around the time of Blackington’s death by Yankee Magazine founder Robb Sagendorf, who for several years used them in their publications. Some negatives (e.g. those from Alburgh, Vermont), may have been mixed in with the Blackington Collection, perhaps before or during its time at Yankee Magazine.
Images drawn from the full range of Blackington’s photographic work, including his more strictly photojournalistic coverage of current events to small photographic essays on individuals or themes in New England culture. The subjects include a strong dose of writers (Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Eugene O’Neill, George Allan England, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Kenneth Roberts), journalists (Walter Winchell, William Cunningham, Mark Hellinger), performers (Will Rogers, Francis X. Bushman), artists (Carlos Abarti, W.H.W. Bicknell, Norman Rockwell, Cyrus Dallin), politicians (Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, James Curley, Owen Brewster), aviators and explorers (Russell Boardman, Richard E. Byrd, Amelia Earhart, Donald MacMillan), and celebrities (Thomas Edison).
Although Series 2 includes “characters,” there are characters aplenty in Series 1, including eccentrics (the mustachioed Bush Eaton, Dugout Dan, Harriet Blackstone Butler), hermits (Charles Coffin, Stephen Hale, Reuben Austin Snow, Benny Wells), and seers
(Professor Braganza). Blackington’s interest in New England traditions and vestiges of fading ways of life are well reflected throughout.
Fine artists, illustrators, and writers were favorite subjects for Blackington as he expanded his scope from coverage of news events to general interest stories on New England, although the two often overlapped. Blackington’s subjects included the poet Robert Frost, playwright Eugene O’Neill, artists Norman Rockwell, Gwendolyn Lawrence, and Carlos Abarti, and popular writers Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Thompson, Booth Tarkington, Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Kenneth Roberts. Of particular interest is a series of images of Upton Sinclair in Boston protesting censorship of his book Oil.
Public interest in aviators and aviation reached a peak during the 1920s and 1930s with the exploits of Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and dozens of less well remembered fliers. Blackington’s work is focused on New England, a jumping off point for trans-Atlantic flights.
Although most of the Blackington Collection comes from his time as a photojournalist, some images appear to represent friends and neighbors, particularly from Lynn, and associates from clubs in Boston. This subseries also includes portraits of people identified only by name. Among these images are several studio portraits where Blackington appears to have been working with lighting.
When working for newspapers or as a distributor of press images, Blackington did copy photography, reproducing images from other photographers or artists for reuse. In many of these images of figures from American history, Blackington’s copy frame is readily apparent, while others are copied from books.
The mainstay of Blackington’s work during the 1920s and 1930s included coverage of news events and personalities in the news. His work ran the gamut from coverage of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial to images of screen stars Theda Bara, Greta Garbo, and Francis X. Bushman. Some of Blackington’s earlier work stems from typical coverage of local crimes and trials (e.g. Charles Ponzi, Bruno Hauptmann), but his subjects also included a wide range of popular lecturers and performers (Will Rogers), explorers (Richard Byrd and Donald MacMillan) and naturalists, and sports figures (Babe Ruth, Jake Killrain). His work also anticipates his growing interest in the people, histories, and cultures of New England that would become the basis for his later work on radio and in print. Some of the images in this subseries are copies of other work used for republication in the newspaper.
Blackington took images of several of his colleagues in the tight knit, Boston-based community of photographers and photojournalists, including prominent figures such as Leslie Jones, Jack Dixon, and Franklin Jordan, as well as pioneering newsreel camera operators. Often covering the same news events, their work overlaps thematically, but they appear to be fellow travelers as much as rivals.
Assigned to cover national events as they affected New England, Blackington photographed every president from Wilson to Roosevelt and was part of the press corps that tagged along with Calvin Coolidge during the campaign of 1924. Blackington was also kept busy with state and national politicians in New England and Mayors and other office holders in Boston and Lynn.
Formally and informally, Blackington documented his colleagues in the Boston news media, marking the comings and goings and changes in position of reporters, editors, artists, and publishers (his fellow photographers have been separated out into their own subseries), as well as radio news personalities, including Walter Winchell who, like Blackington, spanned media. Most of the images are portraits.
Blackington’s coverage of local news and events, especially in Boston and Lynn, included a particular focus on officers in the police and fire departments.
A selection of images depicting “characters,” children, and artisans. Although these images were segregated to assist in locating images relating to Blackington’s fascination with eccentrics, Series 1 includes many other
images depicting similar subject matter.
Images organized by topic, many of which presumably represent the work of photographers distributed through the Blackington News Service. The geographic scope of this series is considerably broader than New England, including a series of images taken in Nova Scotia; lynching photographs from California, Florida, and Missouri; and images of natural disasters from across the country. Many of the images that appear to have been taken by Blackington — e.g. those of cats, dogs, and horses — appear to have been used in his lectures and stories.
Sculptor
Etcher
Artist.
Artist Holding Roosevelt etching
Artist with G. Washington picture
Sculptor
Copy of autographed photo. Inscribed “To Blackie from [Kaisey] and “Jack and Jill”
Copy is of Dennis’ etching used for Texaco advertising
Science fiction writer and treasure hunter.
(Saturday Evening Post) Wife was an illustrator of children’s books
Vermont author, Book of the Month Club editor
Images of her home.
Copy neg. See also 5×7 negs
Negative of Paul White positive plate. Photo most likely taken in 1921 outside the Frost’s stone cottage in South Shaftsbury, VT.
Photo by Paul White
Author of This Rolling World.
Artist
Feature story. Poet, self-proclaimed as the “Poet of Monadnock.” Posed with a hoe.
In greenhouse.
Reading to a group outdoors.
Artist, pictured with other Provincetown artists (Print made TNE)
Noted carilloneur
Pictured at his writing desk after winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 1930.
Wife Dorothy Thompson
Photo of his books. “The Prodigal Parents” written in 1937 – released in January, 1938
Barrel, Vermont (Twin Farms, Barnard – South Pomfret, Vt.)
Entertaining guests at their house in South Pomfret, VT. Michael Lewis pictured as a baby.
with son Michael
3-part yellow-red-blue intended for early color printing. In 1939 Time magazine called Dorothy Thompson the “cartwheel girl” for her ability to overturn ideas, recognizing her as the second most influential woman in America. Pictured in the garden of the Lewis Vermont home.
4pm rain
(Summer home of Dorothy Thompson, Twin Farms Barnard (South Pomfret, P.O.) Vermont. Front of house looking down the valley. Interior of huge livingroom, once Sinclair Lewis’ workroom. Dorothy alone. Son of Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy, Michael as a little boy.
of Ginn and co.
Copy of engraving. Composer. Clover Club job, slide not used
View at Oakdale, also Mrs. Gertrude Kear
Feature Story. American playwright and Nobel poet laureate. Pictured with second wife Agnes Boulton and young daughter Oona O’Neill at picnic and in beach dunes. Oona would go on to be Charlie Chaplin’s last wife. Photos from this set of Blackington’s are on use at PBS.org and in the NYTimes Photo Store, uncredited.
Hugo’s Restaurant Boylston St., Hungarian-American painter, pictured with cigar and mixing palette in front of large canvas
Dime novelist who wrote under the pen-name “Burt L. Standish.” Pictured with book of stories on Frank Merriwell, his best-known fictional character
With puppies
Envelope labeled “first unit” — portrait shot of a man (not Rockwell) with pipe
Loose negatives. At his studio in Arlington, VT
, sometime before it burned down in 1943. Pictured in chair with pipe; at easel; posing for portrait; in garden, possibly with Mrs. Rockwell (nee Mary Barstow); by Blackington with pipe. Newspaper pictured is the North Adams Transcript from either June 1942 or 1943.
Outside the censorship hearing of “Oil” at Beacon Hill
Pictured selling 150 promotional copies of a censored “fig-leaf” version of his book Oil! on Tremont and Boylston Streets in Boston for $2 per copy, the book on which There Will Be Blood (2007) is loosely based. Large fig leaves were printed over Sinclair’s text relating a sex scene in a motel, which Boston censors found objectionable. Fig-leaf sign he is wearing reads “Oil! Guaranteed 100% pure under Boston Law”. Two years later, Sinclair would write a letter of support for an anti-censorship rally held in Boston in which he stated, “I would rather be banned in Boston than read anywhere else, because when you are banned in Boston, you are read everywhere else”.
Woman purchasing copy on the street.
Close-up of woman purchasing copy; group shot of Sinclair with purchasers on the street
Internationally renowned painter, born the son of Quaker parents in Acushnet, MA. Pictured in studio with sculpture
Paintings at Truro. “The Active Sea” is on the back wall
Paintings at Truro. Picture of a work still on its easel
Portrait shot, pictured with palette in his home and studio. Shot of house
“Figaro.” Pictured smoking; with dog; shot of large, two-masted ship
Portrait shots and front of house
Landscape painter (1857-194x). Seated with sketch pad, and 1927 painting
[Aviators (reception in Boston, Mass.)]
Closeup, big smile as he returend to New York, August 4 on the Liner “Manhattan” after his wrong way flight to Ireland
3 loose negatives, taken at the Capitol
Receiving a bouquet of flowers upon arrival at Boston airport.
Reception in Boston
Earhart-Noonan. Whether Ameilia Earhart Putnam will take off for Honolulu on the first leg of her round-the-world-flight from the Oakland Airport or from the San Francisco Municipal Airport at Mills Field is still unknown. Rough surface of the Oakland field is held to be the stumbling block with impending danger to the take-off of her heavily loaded plane with its tremendous capacity of gas. Photo shows puddles in the Oakland Field outside the Navy hangar. Before the hangar is A. E. Putnam’s Lockheed-Electra which will be used in the projected flight. Wide World Photo 3/14/37
Newhampco Air Service
6: 263
Profile of the 32 year old aviator who pilotred a silvery monoplane around the world in less than 4 days. Picture was made as Hughes was receiving New York’s official welcome.
Portrait and picnic
Pilot
Concord Airport, Monday Morning
Aviation – Coast Guard escort for “Yellow Bird” Bernard 191 flight, Old Orchard Beach. Pictured with crowd just before first successful French non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, setting a record for speed and distance flown, as well as being the first successful radio broadcast from the air. Escorted for the beginning of the flight by veteran Maine aviator Lt. Leonard Melka who, along with Lt. Cdr. Carl C. von Paulsen in command of Coast Guard Section Base 7 in Gloucester, MA became a pioneer of Coast Guard aviation when he co-piloted a surplus Vought UO-1 sea plane in 1925 to help spot and apprehend rum smugglers during Prohibition. Congress was impressed and began officially funding Coast Guard aviation endeavors in 1926.
F.R.P.S. (Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society) with camera and darkcloth
At her work table. Murdoch was one of the first female aviators as well as an accomplished early color photographer like Blackington. Boston Public Library and other records show that she worked with autochromes.
Llandeilo, Wales – H. Richman, left and Dick Merrill getting ready to zoom off from the field in which they have landed after crossing the Atlantic for their original goal, Croydon Airport. A minute after the picture was taken, they were once more aloft in their plane, the “Lady Peace”
Burned hull of the motorboat owned by Harry Richman in which a party of Ziegfield “follies” and other Broadway principals narrowly escaped death when the gasoline tank exploded near Greenpoint, L.I.
H. Richman, left and Dick Merrill airlines pilot, shown looking over weather reports at Floyd Bennett Field today, just before they hopped off in their silver monoplane on an attempted flight to London. Airplane is “Lady Peace”
Early aviator. For American Magazine “Flying Santa Claus” to NE lighthouses. Pictured with care packages by amphibious airplaine sponsored by “La Touraine Coffee.” Beginning in 1929, Capt. Wincapaw would fly to New England lighthouses and drop care packages to the lighthouse keepers to show appreciation for them. His son Bill Jr. would serve as the “bomber” dropping packages.
New England Power Co., for comic paste-up. See Clover Club.
Old film
Copy neg. for Pi Tau Kappa job.
Taken on the steps of 9 Hamilton Place.
Novelty etching of photographer and group. Inscribed “Blackinton Queenstown 1927”
(See Gertrude Hennings)
Died 1928
Bonair St.
New House
Lynn Houses
Hotel Hawthorne
Sharing cigarettes
Eclipse
With parasol and bathing suits
Yachting – Group on yacht
People
People
In costumes. Prints are inscribed “Boris”
Riker Baby
Portraits
Pictured in front of movie house with poster for Helen Twelvetrees in Unashamed (1932)
Reading Memories of 50 Years
People
Mrs. Ryan is a niece of Mr. A.B. Merrill. Pictured at
typewriter and holding child
Picture of boy riding bicycle with parakeet on the handlebars
Portrait shot
Portrait shots seated
Portrait shots, seated, one with pipe
Portrait, with wife, and shot of house
Portrait shot
George and Daughter of Broad St. Lynn. Pictured singing and at piano with WESX microphone
Jordans. (Meaning the negative is probably Franklin Jordan’s). Pictured holding puppy in farmhouse doorway
Portrait shots, wearing fur coat
Outside house
House in winter
Portrait shots
Portrait shots
4×5 glass
Industrial Lens. At his work bench
Pictured at desk reading newspaper; with sketch pad
Portrait shot, with pipe
Frontispiece and title page of book by Waldo F. Glover
Crime
Portrait and photo of 1860s statuary group of Lincoln entitled “The Council of War”
Lincoln headlines: Boston Daily Advertiser April 15, 1865, “Assassination of President Lincoln!! Escape of the Murderer, Mr. Lincoln Mortally Wounded! Washington Mad with Excitement! Attempted Murder of Secretary Seward, the Wound Not Fatal, the Assassin’s Flight,” Daily Evening Traveler April 15, 1865, “Death of the President,” Boston Daily Advertiser April 20, 1865 “The Funeral of President Lincoln,”
Caswell, Rev., Lincoln, Impersonator of Lincoln
Caswell, Rev., Lincoln, Impersonator of Lincoln
Caswell, Rev., Lincoln, Impersonator of Lincoln
Portrait shots, with and without hat
and program
Gravemarker reads: “Here lies Captain John Percival who served in the war of 1812 and at one time commanded the frigate Constitution.”
Photo of Cyrus E. Dallin’s statue of Paul on horseback
Copy of halftone artist drawing
Miles Standish feature story: in 1922, a lightning bolt decapitated the Duxbury, MA monument to Miles Standish. Boston sculptor John Horrigan cut a replacement granite head for it in 1926.
Etching by W.H.W. Bicknell
painting in oval frame
Birthplace. House exterior, girl seated by stove, and blanket given to Webster in 1841
Commander, American Legion Post 291
Autographed photo, property of Howard Cullinan.
Deceased: former head of the Boston Business Bureau and Baron Weekly
Millen, Faber case. Alienist for the state, sketched by Beulah Selesnick, well known Boston artist.
Pastor, Tremont Temple Baptist Church, Boston, 1930; now (1937) in Glendale, Calif.
(Pictures taken on Mr. B. trip to Judge Brown’s summer home, Hanover, N.H. 1935) Photo of judge eating banana from Kodachrome, 1937)
Movie actor
Reception and mayor, in first car coming up Federal Street, Boston.
Harvard Professor of Zoology.
Courtroon where Jessie Costello was tried. Also Molway and Berrett.
Psychologist and operatic prima donna.
Essex County, MA District Attorney who functined as cross-examiner in a number of high-profile murder cases such as the 1934 Berrett-Molway trial and the 1933 Costello murder trial. Photographed here at Costello trial at which Jessie Costello was, through her charm and personality, acquitted of murdering her husband, Peabody fireman William Costello, by cyanide poisoning.
Sports writer for the Boston Globe. Print is inscribed “Best wishes to Blackie from fellow scribe”
Manager of Richard E. Byrd’s 1933 expedition , with captain of “Bear of Oakland.”
In motorized wheelchair.
Negs. Taken of them and people around their home, Melvin Village.
Died Sunday, October 17, 1931
Arrival at Wayside Inn with Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and Gov. Alvan F. Fuller (See also Ford)
Daddy of the 26th Division, World War I Major General
Bird expert, South Street, Rupert Co.
With extra empty envelope
From Sunday Herald. 1911-2009. Model, actress, and sister of Surrealist Charles Henri Ford with many minor credits in late 1930s to ear
ly 1940s films. Portrait taken with soft-focus lens.
In the role of Mata Hari and with John Gilbert.
Known as “Colonel” Green, son of the financially successful “Witch of Wall Street” Hetty Green.Funded the restoration of the last surviving American whaling ship, the “Charles W. Morgan” of New Bedford, a project funded by Col. Edward GreenElectric automobile. Pictured by airplane.
Famous autograph-collecting minister with a residence in Brooklyn, NY, whose collection grew to 42 volumes of 2,500 pictures and 3,000 manuscripts. He would persistently send his requests by 23-cent registered letters, though never to athletes or actors. Pictured with wife and child. According to a Milwaukee Journal story in 1948, the Reverend had by that point collected autographs from “the last three popes, the last five presidents, every dictator (except Stalin) since 1919, Chief Two Gun White Calf, whose face is on the buffalo nickel, and a wedding picture of the duke and duchess of Windsor signed by everybody present,” as well as autographs from a multitude of famous individuals such as Henry Ford and Albert Einstein.
Curator, Franklin Park Zoo.
In bathing suit.
From Boston Post halftone copy.
Former Secretary of the Boston City Club.
North German Lloyd at launching of Yankee.
247
Naturalist and wife at Sharon Bird Sanctuary.
Revered. Special feature: The fire-fighting parson.
Of Buckland, Me., tied up in houseboat at South Station.
Of Buckland, Me., tied up in houseboat at South Station.
of Orland, Me.
Winthrop and model of whaling bark-Charles W. Morgan
Birds
In top hat. City of Boston
Discharge Certificate Toomey, Lynn Item. From Brookfield, MA, served as Assistant Surgeon in the Navy during the Spanism American War, 1898
(see Mohawk Trail, Mass.) Charles A. Pope- Osa-Fred Brown. Holding 2 caught fish.
Trainer of football team
With horse.
With Blackington, laughing
On the Ferdinando Gorges, Bath Maine Ferry
Son of German immigrants and shoe businessman. Built large estate now on the register of historic places. Taking temperature of water
Archbishop of Canterbury
Image is by Leslie Jones: http://www.lesliejonesphotography.com/collection/0806002487
26th Division Parade
Bee expert
Former President of Harvard University
Arctic explorer. Shaking hands at ceremony
Portrait
At Navy Yard before sailing on polar trip
Artic explorer, holding toy dolls
Polar trip departure
Pictured at the helm of the ship Bowdoin.
Helped build one of the Civil War Monitors
Portrait
Manager of the Shattuck Inn, Jaffrey, NH. Pictured with bugle
School teacher of Boston — song and skit writer, comedy writer for radio comedians-lifelong friend of Fred Allen and writer and directors of skits and burlesques presented by the Clover Club of Boston. Died March 1938. This neg from picture from Globe made for enlargements and slide for Clover Club ordered by John Ahern. N.E. Power Co.
Two silent-era actors
Carrying crown. Local story of a Portuguese immigrant fisherman who lived in Gloucester. After he and his crew were narrowly saved when their vessel was sunk in an accident in the fog, he vowed to bring a crown back from Portugal as a symbol of thanks. The crowning tradition in his Parish continues today.
Surrounded by sailors in uniform.
Mike and Meyer WNAC comedians
With dog.
Famous judge. See story on cats.
Little’s Pt.
With his dog
At his home on Camel’s Hump Mt. Vermont
With young Boy Scout in campaign hat holding bugle
for Hart Society Feb. 2, 1938 and daughter. Pictured surrounded by azaleas indoors.
Wrote a 1933 piece in Scribner’s Magazine entitled “America’s Homeless Army” about the plight of an estimated 200,000 homeless children in the United States during the Depression. Pictured with baby playing with autumn leaves
N. H. Ocean Born Mary Story. Norris pictured on beach with skull
Head of Mass. N.R.A. and Treas. Of Slattery’s Slide made for Bill McKenney
Wife of Douglas Fairbanks
Rogues Gallery. Copy is of mug shot
920undated
Crime. Ponzi boarding a train
Crime. Potentially an image of a run on Ponzi’s company
Crime. Portrait
Crime. House at Lexington
Crime. House at Lexington
Events, Crime. Mother having arrived from Italy
Swimming champ. Print of Richards in kayak is autographed
People
Of Southport. Successful vaudeville comedian and radio personality. Pictured with typewriter on small boat.
Autographed print, “Yours for Fun, Will Rogers”
Copied from halftone in “Record”
A military guard of honor stands beside the flower-drapped casket containing the body of W.R. 100,000 persons waited outside the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Calif. And filed past in orderly manner. Acme 8/23/35
Attendants are shown carrying the casket containing the body of W.R. to place it on view to admirers in the Forest Kawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Calif. 100,000 persons filed past in orderly fashion, to pay final tribute to the man who had inspired and amused them with his gentile wit. Later the body was placed in a crypt, where it will remain until a future date. when it will be sent to Claremont, Oklahoma, where the late actor spent his early days. Acme
8/23/35
Mother of Gussie Roy, a New England pictorial photographer who would use her in portraits. For Ocean-Born Mary story: Mrs. Roy and Gussie moved to New Hampshire to restore the supposed house of “Ocean-Born Mary,” a figure of New England folklore and legend . Also see Norris, Lowell Ames
Dorothy and Mrs. L.D. with group of Camp Idlewild women. Owned by Mr. and Mrs. Roys. Description from a 1929 issue of Boys’ Life: “Under the expert leadership of L.D. Roys, red-blooded boys from many states enjoy summers at famous Camp Idlewild. It’s a woodland island, 7 miles around, on Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire. Every hour spent there is 60 minutes worth of real sport and adventure.”
Holding flowers
Portrait
Posed in Yankees uniform, hands on hips
At batting practice hitting a baseball. Game is at the Polo Grounds stadium in Manhattan, located above Central Park, before the opening of the New York Yankees’ new stadium in April.
North End Morgue. Outside the Suffolk County North Mortuary
Execution. Mounted officers in front of State Prison. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed just after midnight on the morning of
Officers taking Oath of Alliance, Day before Sacco-Vanzzetti Electricution
Protestors with signs, “If they are not innocent, why are you afraid of a new trial?”
Protestors marching
Execution. In front of the State Prison
Execution. Uniformed policemen with bayonet-equipped shotguns standing on a street corner[On post-it note: “Annie — you gave this 2 me a long time ago, G”]
Pictured with pipe; on horseback, and bottling Yukon Pale Dry Ginger Ale
Providence astronomer. Portrait shot
Author and Professor at Boston University from Hingham, MA. Friends with Burroughs the naturalist. Portrait shot, pictured in vineyard with grapes
Portrait shot
Friend of Prince Edward, for whom King Edward abdicated the Welsh Throne to marry in December 1936.
Captain of various White Star vessels, most notably the S.S. Titanic
Pictured with his bride, Marie Elliott Sonnenberg (better known by her stage name Judith Allen, chosen for her by Cecil B. DeMille). They were divorced later the same year. Photo taken by Bill Cunningham, former teammate of Sonnenberg at Dartmouth and sports columnist for the Boston Herald. Sonnenberg died of leukemia while serving in the Navy in WWII.
Died Saturday March 5, 1932. Portrait in parade dress with baton in front of NBC microphones
Died Saturday March 5, 1932. Portrait in parade dress
Just before Murder. Portrait
Norcross, Dept. of Education, Div. of Vocational Training
“The Boston Strong Boy,” first heavyweight gloved boxing champion. Portraits and copy of his championship belt
Keeper of the Highland light from 1915-1935.
Captain of the schooner “Alice S. Wentworth” (launched 1863, rebuilt and christened as named in 1904) which is pictured. Photos made 12-3-37 at Pierce and Kilburn Marine Railways (also known as the “PK Yards” or Fairhaven Shipyard). Tilton is pictured coming up from hold; in rigging; at home cooking dinner; in front of the schooner; hauling on lines; at helm. Portraits of Tilton. Shot of the yards, Mariner’s Club in background; schooner in dry dock
One of the last living whaling captains. Autobiography “Cap’n George Fred Himself.” Hired to oversee the restoration of the last surviving American whaling ship, the “Charles W. Morgan” of New Bedford, a project funded by Col. Edward Green. The ship’s last voyage was in 1921, and its restoration was completed by 1927 when it was put on display by Green. Portrait shots of Tilton with pipe and with sextant by the “Morgan”
At movie projector. Library of Congress Copyright Catalog has entry for a film entitled “Used parts, a play in 3 acts by G. E. Tufts” in 1937, and “Case of the mad doctor; or, Used parts, by G. E. Tufts. Rev. Aug. 28, 1939”
Portrait shots, close-up portrait on glass plate
At Stereoptican
Pictured with filmmaking equipment and luggage
Christmas – as Santa Claus
Christmas – as Santa Claus
Christmas – Woodstock to Plymouth. Blackington pictured with Paul Whelton as Santa Claus on sled, not in costume.
People- Buddy boy magician
(See AGFA Color Plate and Dancers). Pioneer of modern and expressive dance in New England, daughter of prominent New England industrialist Sidney Winslow, president of United Shoe Machinery Corp. until his death in 1917. Pictured with cape; three other dancers together outdoors; possibly at the family farm in Francestown, NH
Author. Pictured in front of CBS radio microphone
Ex. Mayor of Lynn
Japanese-American amateur photographer active in the 1910s and 20s. Harvard University’s Fine Art Library holds a large album of nearly 500 of his photographs. He received various awards for his photography in 1922 and 1923 from the Photographer’s Guild of Boston and the Pictorial Photographers of America.
Pictured with wife Mary Ann.
Photographer
With motion picture camera
Prolific Boston photographer and journalist. Gag photo — pictured covered in large format cameras.
Photographer
Midnight Party. Photo taken by Jordan?
Marie Ann and Hilda Lucene in Maine. Sledding with large format camera.
Holding aerial camera
Movie man in action. Innovative cameraman and Chief of New England Pathe service by 1931. Pictured with hand-cranked 35mm Pathe News camera taking low-angle shot of the water at the Commonwealth Dry Dock
Movie man in action. Portrait shot
Arboretum. Pictured with paint can; changing aperture on large format camera
With Presidential flag
Gov. of Maine
British ambassador to the U.S.; Institute of Politics.
British ambassador to the U.S.; Institute of Politics.
“Cal went into store and bought tub for Grace to pee in — Cal said reporters should know what for”
Coolidge smiling, possibly with wife and mother
Portraits-Political- Henry Cabot lodge Calvin Coolidge Hohn. W. Weeks
dedication Soldier’s Monument and flagpole – Grace’s dog lifted his leg against flagpole, “Cal says, ‘Dogs will be dogs'”. Pictuerd with their dog Blackberry, a chow.
Special Men with [hot water]; Col. John glass hearse
1st Sunday after Coolidge came to north shore for summer
at Swampscott July 4, Dupe on EKco [Eastman Kodak], positive Sept. 39
Purser at White Court, Calvin Coolidge’s summer house
Pictured with Grace Coolidge and their two white collies, Prudence Prim and Rob Roy.
Standing in front of house.
Cutting birthday cake. From the National Archives: “This photo was made as he celebrated his fifty-ninth birthday back on 4 July of 1931 at Swampscott, Mass. Beside the Former President is Mrs. Coolidge.”
Sap Bucket Group (VALUABLE) Col. John, Calvin, Ford and Edison, visit when John Burroughs not here
Coolidge holding sap bucket
GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS Before the rest of the congregation went to church at Plymouth, Vt. Yesterday August 5th, John C. Coolidge, father of the President, entered the small old-fashioned house of worship and in silent prayer prayed for his son’s welfare and success. This exclusive photo shows John C. Coolidge, 78 yrs. old father of the President praying in church yesterday, Aug. 5, Boston Traveler, Pub. March 19, 1926
Former Governor of Massachusetts.
Youngest son of Governor James Curley. Later became a Jesuit priest.
One-term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, one-term as Governor of Massachusetts, and four-terms as Mayor of Boston.
Pictured during one of his four terms as Mayor of Boston
Funeral, possibly for Superintendent of Police Michael Crowley on Aug. 25, 1933, or possibly for wife Mary Curley, October 13, 1930, or son James Jr. on January 12, 1931. Police commissioner Eugene Hultman pictured walking down street (possibly leading funeral procession) on film negative.
Photo – portrait shot
Photo – pictured seated in front of fireplace
Pictured before being elected Governor
making speech before (?) Spanish American War vets
portrait
photo
at Washington birthday reception, State house, 1936
Jamaicaway Home ?
arriving at State House to begin his term
Jamaicaway residence
Pictured at the Tammany Club during one of his four terms as Mayor of Boston
just before election for Governor
Mary and Francis in campaign crowd at Boston Gardens
waving goodbye from train
Painting by Caleb Arnold Slade.
Vice President to Calvin Coolidge at White Court, Coolidge’s summer house.
Eclipse. With wife and another man, holding solar eclipse glasses
Hat in hand.
Ex-mayor of Boston.
Governor of Maine.
Candidate for Lt. Governor.
Governor of New Jersey.
On Boston Common.
On the occasion of the Lincoln Day Dinner of the Natonal Rep. Association in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Pres. Hoover had just competled his address, the last one scheduled in his administration.
Colonel.
Dr. Hsieh (1st), the “Roosevelt of China”
Speaking at the dedication of the Dallin’s statue of Paul Re
vere.
Herald Staff Photo
Lipton died 1931-10-03. John F. Kennedy with siblings Joseph and Rosemary pictured as children. Potentially taken on Lipton’s yacht
answering back General Johnson in radio address from Washington D.C. Acme Photo 3-8-35
39th Mayor of Lynn, 1930-1939
autographed portrait to Melville E. Stone, with seal of Boston Public Library on it. Portrait by Elmer Chickering, prolific Boston portrait photographer.
25th President of the United States. Copy of portrait and of photograph from Harper’s Weekly, June 7, 1898
Acme Photo 398868
Benito Mussolini and Senator Gugliemlmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless, in Rome on the 80th anniversary of the Fascist march on Italy’s Capitol. A. P. Photo 10/28/30
At writing desk
44th mayor of Boston. Also a reporter for the Boston Traveler and Boston Post. Appears to be having his arm treated.
Portrait as president elect
Portrait as Governor of N.Y.
(Window display for Presidents’ Day) Orchids left to right, Dendrobium, Dypredium, Cattleya labiata. Card in the display reads: “Orchids to President Roosevelt and Walter Winchell who first suggested President’s Day, Sun. Apr. 30 1933. Photos from Alton Hall Blackington’s Illustrated Lecture Series “Gentlemen of the Press.” To the right, the inscription on Winchell’s portrait reads: “To A. H. Blackington, good wishes, Walter Winchell”
Portrait credit from New York Times Studio
with news correspondents including Mike hennessey
Riding in car. Appears to be riding in his Ford Phaeton convertible.
Portrait of President and his mother
Mrs. Sarah Roosevelt and son
Marvin H. McIntyre, Sec. to Pres. And Richard Jervis, Secret Service
Newspapermen at Groton Gate, waiting for him
at his home
with Gloucester fisherman
At Crowley Funeral
After their engagement was announced
Roosevelt and Clark Wedding
copied from magazine cover
Autographed portrait, “To Melville E. Stone, with regards of Theodore Roosevelt, March 18th, 1904”
Gov. Leverett copied from pictures loaned by Russell Gerold his secretary on publicity
He usually wears the brilliant colors for which the imperial wardrobe is famous. The “Lion of Judah”, descendent of Sheba” and Negus of Ethiopia, will personally lead his men to battle in event of a conflict with Itality. Is shown wearing black robe. Int. News Photo
Gov. Smith’s Reception. Celebration in street with crowd
Gov. Smith’s Reception. Ex. Governor of N.Y. View from the street
Gov. Smith’s Reception. Print has label: “Associated Press Photo. From: Boston Bureau. Please use credit. General view of the crowd which greeted Governor Alfred Smith when the Democratic presidential nominee…”
with celebrities, Jack Dixon. Picture taken right in front of motorcade
with celebrities, Jack Dixon. Group shot
Pictured coming down steps; in motorcade; with mounted police
See Coolidge. Pictured reading in rocking chair
See Coolidge. Pictured reading in rocking chair
Pictured in vehicle; copy of portrait
Outside under “Taft and Sherman” US Flag
Representative from Mass. Portrait, seated at desk
Autographed Portrait to Melville E. Stone, inscribed “With the good wishes of Woodrow Wilson”
Portrait
in motorcade
Wilson’s return from the Peace Conference. Returned to the US July 8th, 1919, and presented the treaty to Congress on July 10th. Pictured: 4 press cinematographers with movie cameras on tripods; arrival of the George Washington into the harbor; other craft in the harbor; Wilson disembarking; Wilson in motorcade
See Mike Hennessey
Editor, Boston Herald, Pulitzer Prize
Editorial: ‘Who made Coolidge?’
Boston Traveler poetess
Manager and editor of Boston Herald. For comic paste-up. See Clover Club negatives.
Announcer for Walter Winchell on Lucky Strike program, NBC
Boston Traveler announcement of Collier joining the staff. From March 4, 1933 Boston Traveler. 2nd plate is of copy of print inscribed “To Al. Blackington, with regards of Otto Grow, also Franklin P. Collier” — Grow was one of his atirical cartoon creations
Gentlemen of the press.
Drama critic for the Boston Post.
Boston Globe broadcaster; also at WEEI broadcasting studio (April 12, 1933)
Cartoonist
Traveler reporter.
Art Department, Boston Herald.
At a Remington typewriter
Inscribed “To Blackington–ALL my best, Mark Hellinger”
On Gov. Landon’s train, presidential campaign.
Boston Herald.
With Blackington in front of airplane
Gloucester reporter
Ex paymaster Boston Herald
Hartford lecture
Made from negative of Isaac Marcosson. Blackington is pictured interviewing Marcosson
Holding two large fish
Meteorologist in charge of Boston office US Weather Bureau giving noon weather forecast WBZ and WBZA
Editor Boston Herald. Print inscribed, “To my friend A. H. Blackington, with cordial regards – Robert L. O’Brien”. Pictured working on newspaper.
Sunday Herald Soft focus made in 1927
Advertising manager of the Boston Herald
People
W.E.E.I. New England’s first radio weather forecaster, in his office
Radio Weather Forecaster. Photographs of Rideout with meteorological equipment
Reading Paper
Features- Boston Globe reporter. Portrait shots. Stanyan was on the scene of the Steamer Portland’s wreck as it washed ashore, and he was among the first to relay information back about it (roundabout, via international telegraph back to the Globe office).
G.O.P. Lecture, Admiral Peary’s Telegram. Copy of Peary’s telegram announcement of reaching the North Pole from Stone’s book, Fifty Years a Journalist.
Gentlemen of the press, gen. mgr. the associated press 1893-1921. Counselor associated press 1921-1929. Died Feb. 15, 1929- 80 years. Portrait
G.O.P. Lecture, copy of Kaiser’s Telegram from Stone’s book, Fifty Years a Journalist.
Gentlemen of the Press Stone, Melville E. Counselor of the Associated Press (1921-1929), and for many years its general manager (1893-1921), died at his home in New York, Feb. 15, 1929. Mr. Stone was 80 years old and had been in failing health for four months and had been out but little since Christmas
City Editor, Boston Globe. Portrait
Founder of the Boston Globe
Autographed portrait copy, inscribed: “To Blackington, with deepest salaams! Lowell Thomas”
Colonial Costume
Portrait
At typewriter, looking over his famous gossip column, “On Broadway” in newspaper and smoking a Lucky Strike
Autographed Portrait inscribed “To A. H. Blackington, good wishes, Walter Winchell”
For glass plate of Winchell photograph, orchids left to right: dendrobiun and cattleya labiata. Window display for Presidents’ Day. Card in the display reads: “Orchids to President Roosevelt and Walter Winchell who first suggested President’s Day, Sun. Apr. 30 1933. Photos from Alton Hall Blackington’s Illustrated Lecture Series “Gentlemen of the Press.” To the right, the inscription on Winchell’s portrait reads: “To A. H. Blackington, good wishes, Walter Winchell”
for window display
Copy of a poem by Van E. Eshelman his column in the Daily Mirror
Autographed Portrait inscribed “To A. H. Blackington, good wishes, Walter Win
chell”
Gentlemen of the Press. Winchell’s Gang. Pictured in 1910 Gus Edwards skit with Eddie Cantor and George Jessel
Gentlemen of the press- three members of the Vincent Coll Gang of New York and two women were arrested ay Averill Park, N.Y., October 4 after a pitched battle between the gangsters and state troopers aided by New york detectives. More than 25 shots were fired in the battle. The photogrtaph shows the troopers and detectives exhibiting the guns taken from the gangsters. Coll was arrested in New York and same day with members of his gang. Boston Traveler, Pub. Oct 6, 1931
Fannie Hurst, noted author, are pictured as they attended the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, alleged Linbergh kidnapper, in the Hunterdon County Court. Winchell pictured in front of NBC radio microphone
Fannie Hurst, noted author, are pictured as they attended the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, alleged Linbergh kidnapper, in the Hunterdon County Court
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Winchell and their children Walda and Gloria on the Roney Plaza beach (International Newsreel Photo)
Gentlemen of the press- the drug store on the lower west side of New York City in which Vincent Coll, 24 year old gangster, recently acquitted of the slaying of a five year old boy in the Harlem “Baby Killing” last summer, was killed late in the evening of Feb. 7. Coll had entered a telephone booth and was phoning when a gunman entered with a machine gun and pumped L” bullets into his body. It is believed members of “Dutch” Schultz’s gang, a rival in the beer racket, eliminated the notorious young gangster from police records.
Being interviewed
In police captain’s uniform
With New York Fire Department and Fire Boat Group
Copy of newspaper headlines announcing death and funeral of Crowley, Superintendent of Boston Police for 18 years, in Boston Traveler on Aug. 22 and 25, 1933
Funeral Dignataries
Funeral
With Henry Fox Chief of the Boston Fire Department, taken on Boston Common during the Tercentennary Celebration in 1930.
Police commissioner; gentlemen of the press.
“No envelope so do not know name. 6/25/67”
Special police officer, Hamilton Place (Blackington’s photographic studio and news service was located at 9 Hamilton Place)
State Fire Warden and Forest Warden, Westboro.
Comm. Of Dept. of Public Safety
Dept. of Public Safety and Fire Marshall’s office. Portrait loaned to us, May 16, 1935
Pictured in office
Holding bouquet at New Bedford Fire Chiefs’ Convention
Bird and animal imitator
Character. Dressed as a woman, with a shawl
“Cream Puff Story.” Pictured with cat, pipe, cane, and sled outside house.
Character. “Cream Puff Story” Outside with dog and cream puff
Feature Story. Outside with pipe and cream puff
Character. Outside with gun, dog, and tent
Characters
Crystal Gazer. Prof. Braganza in costume.
Characters. Pictured on sled in warm weather
Shearing Sheep. Young daughter is also pictured holding lamb.
Shearing Sheep. Uncle John Brooks and Clifton Ware, N.H. trip with Cliff Follansbee.
America’s Mother Goose woman
America’s Mother Goose woman
Feature story, Characters. In Mother Goose costume, reading from The Only True Mother Goose(1905)
Characters. Old man pictured with crutch on small farm; by corn; with other man with pipe.
Arthur Clark with monkey; Mrs. Clark with parrot.
Birds – Parrot with Mrs. Clark.
Monkey- the globe trotting monkey
Monkeys- Feature story Cleo the Globe trotting monkey.
Whaling. Pictured seated with rope, wearing apron
Artist and misogynist. “Self-proclaimed World’s Champion Woman-Hater, Albion L. Clough, lived in a converted boat on Cape Neddick’s River Road from 1936-1944. A master of public relations, the long-haired artist made a living selling postcards, folk art, and inflated misogyny[…] Clough told anyone who would listen that he had walked away from a lucrative fishing camp business in Brighton, Maine to escape his second wife Eleanor’s caustic disposition. In 1936, Cape Neddick fishermen allowed him to drag a decrepit, 28-foot sailboat from the Cape Neddick River to a lot near the Atlantic Shoreline Railway tracks. He roofed it over for summer habitation and christened it the Ark of Maine[…] It became the headquarters of a woman-hater’s club that boasted over 100 members[… Clough] played the organ, the banjo, the guitar, and reportedly had a beautiful tenor voice.” (Info from Southern Maine Old News online).
(See Caulfield). Pictured with oil lamp and boots on work bench
Hermit. Desert of Maine. Pictured wearing Grover Cleveland bandana, holding a sabre — pro
bably from the Indian Wars which ended around 1886 after the capture of Apache leader Geronimo.
Hermit.
Topsfield County Fair, oldest in the country. SPNEA also holds images by Blackington of the first races at the Topsfield Fair in 1933
“Man Mountain” Dean, Prize Fighter, born Frank Simmons Leavitt
Characters. Walking on his hands
Characters. Portrait shot
Lives in ground. Blackington discovered this hermit of Barre, VT in the summer of 1925 when looking for a story there with another Boston Herald reporter. The story was later broadcast as a “Yankee Yarn” on September 29, 1947. “Dugout Dan” ran a filling station and had made his home in the hillside, ostensibly after hearing a tale that living in a hole could cure his rheumatism. He boasted an ice cream parlor inside the home (with a freezer powered by a water wheel), a rolling canvas panorama illustrating a trip down the Mississippi (complemented by sounds and ‘special effects’ provided by Dan himself), an enormous silk-canopied four-post bed, a collection of over 10,000 calling cards left by visitors, and numerous other curios. From the Vermont Historical Society finding aid on Dana Smith: “Dana H. Smith was born in Montpelier, Vermont, ca. 1858[…] He married May Burnham on August 15, 1878 in Montpelier, Vermont. They had two children: Ely Goddard (1881-1969) and Perley (b. 1887). He and May lived apart most of their married life and at some point they divorced. He built [the No. 9 Lonely Hearts Club], which initially functioned as his home, on Route 302 in East Barre, Vermont. The structure was distinctive not only because Dana constructed it and nearly all its furnishings himself, but also because it was built into a hillside (hence its later name, the ‘Dugout’). No. 9 functioned as a tourist attraction and according to newspaper coverage from the time was visited by 26,000 people in the six-year period from 1913-1919. It later evolved into a ‘Get acquainted club for those who are lonely’ (a lonely hearts club, equivalent to a singles bar at the tiMe.).”
M Dunham died Sept. 27, 1931. G. Dunham died Oct. 1933
A native of New Hampshire, Alvin “Bush” Eaton was reported in
several 1931 newspapers to have a moustache measuring 27 inches end-to-end. Eaton, like so many others about whom Blackington told “character” stories, was a long-time workingman and loyal to his job at the Potter Place railroad depot. He worked there for decades, first as a freight agent and then carrying the mail from the depot to the town Post Office through 1961. It was common at the time for railroad companies to take good care of their employees, and even as a nonagenarian, Eaton was still being paid for small odd jobs such as cleaning the tracks. He went on to be the oldest man of Andover, NH in 1968, at which point he became the next holder of a special, gold-headed rosewood cane distributed by the Boston Post for the oldest citizens of hundreds of New England towns starting in 1909.
Big mustache. Pictured holding yard stick up to moustache
A scowling, well-attired older woman looking on as street vendor weighs her purchase. Scene is probably from Boston.
The lamplighter: Haven Ave. Served in the Civil War and was captured by the Confederates. Born ca. 1843 in New Hampshire.
Cape Cod attorney who contended the donut was invented after a Nauset Native American shot an arrow through a Pilgrim’s fried dough cake. Among the many other donut invention stories is that of Captain Gregory Oversized novelty “donut postcard” sent to Ellis, a New England historian, by Pillsbury after they saw his tale in the Hyannis, MA Daily Times claiming the donut was invented accidentally when an arrow was shot through a normal donut cake. Part of Blackington’s story on donuts around the time of the 1941 symposium in New York City sponsored by the American Donut Company to discern its origins (see also Hanson, Capt. Gregory Crockett). The postcard, which bears 20 one-cent postage stamps to account for the huge donut attached, reads as follows: “Dear Mr. Ellis: Mary Ellis Ames, Directory of Pillsbury Cooking Service, let us girls publish a newspaper, “The Do-Nut News,” featuring your story about the invention of the doughnut by an Indian brave. We were skeptical, but when we tried it we found out it could have happened that way. Thought you’d want to see a copy, so here it is.” Ellis is pictured holding, dunking, and eating the donut.
Blind clam digger Captain Otis Bradford Fish (1856-1937) of Falmouth. Pictured digging for clams. Note an article on Fish appeared in the Boston Traveler for July 3, 1926.
Clam digging (Blind clam digger). Portraits with pipe; with clam-digging tools
Blind. Pictured in wet road with cart; outside house
Feature Story Character. Portrait; in wet road with cart; sitting on barrel and putting on waders
Sitting on crate with clam
Love farm
Love farm
Millionaire Love farm.
Another alleged inventor of the doughnut who claimed he invented it using the round lid of a tin pepper box and subsequently imparted the idea to his mother who began cooking them and sending them around Maine where they became popular. Part of Blackington’s story on donuts (see also Ellis, Henry).
The Newbury Hermit.
Character. With lobster in pot on a stovetop by the shore
Feature Story, oldest telephone operator, died at the age of 83 (1846-1930). Worked for a quarter century at the Harmony and Wellington Telephone Company exchange. Pictured at switchboard.
Feature Story, oldest telephone operator. Portrait shot
Feature Story, oldest telephone operator. Pictured at switchboard.
Characters. Arm-in-arm with police officer and man in torn shirt
China repairer
China Repairing. Listed as a draper in 1916 Boston directory, and as china repairer by 1922, the same year he is listed as having patented a “cement for repairing broken china, glass, etc”
China Repairing Feature
Character- “I didn’t have on that Blue shirt that day”
Proprietor of Casino and publisher of the Winnepesaukee News
Characters. Painting small boat, the “Rymes”
Character. Giving a boy his autograph with a pencil in his teeth
House Boat
Corner Stone Veteran’s Memorial and City Hall Dedicated on the Tenth Anniversary of Armistice Day by the World War Veterans of Lynn November 11, 1928
Character- Maine Old Timers. 86 years old
Characters. Pictured with dog and shotgun; on porch with two other men
Characters- with Judge Brown
Characters. Cut from 4×5 negative. Oldest railroad crossing tender (a position made obsolete by automatic crossing guards and now almost nonexistent), retiring at the age of 80. Pictured with his stop sign. Nicknamed the “Jack-Knife Minister” for his accomplished whittling, which he would perform while giving talks for various organizations and groups such as the Boy Scouts.
Character
See Lighthouse Marblehead. With two lamps in hand.
Characters. In Boston streets, by traffic cop island
Portrait with American flag
Portrait of Cape Cod Quaker, Feature Story Quaker Cape Cod.
Characters. Posing in taxi cab
Characters. With police officer
Large manila rope
Deceased
Characters- with Judge B
Characters. Pictured in raincoat
From his arm band, this was taken at a “Boston American Bicycle” pageant of some sort
Blacksmith shop. Norris Bailey Pevear (1855-1940), known as the designer of the “Old Man of Seabrook” sign, “a familiar sight to Lafayette highway motorists for many- years” reports his obituary (Portsmouth Herald, July 13, 1940). The famous sign is now kept by the Seabrook Historical Society. Pictured holding horseshoes.
Blacksmith. Types. Portrait shot; hanging signs recording first snow and below zero temperatures from 1919-1930.
Jaffrey, N.H.
Old Men – man 101 with hoe
Characters – old man with hoe
Characters – old man
Old man with horse
Types. Copy negative of retouched image
Character Study. Copy negative of retouched image
Auctioneer, reading poster with headline: “Auction Sale, Accredited Herd of Cattle, Hogs, Farming Tools, Etc.”
Old and whiskered
Portrait shot
Grandson of Highland Light’s first lighthouse keeper. Died Feb. 5, 1934. Published several pamphlets on lighthouse keeping and New England shipwrecks. Pictured with a miniature landscape of the beach and waves created on a plank, demonstrating the firing of a life-line from a cannon. Portrait shots, one with little girl. Glass plate o
f woman by beach sign (possibly his granddaughter): “We have been on the job reporting the ships and storms for more than sixty years We will answer any questions you may care to ask about this locality, — no charge –“
Old town crier in uniform and with bell, Walter T. “Hoppy” Smith, the last functional town crier of Provincetown and believed to have been the last functional town crier in the country. Retired at the age of 78 in 1927 due to physical debilitation, after which there was a a lapse in his post until the early 1930s when the position was revived for promotional and tourism purposes.
Crier Smith. (Print made TNE). Died 1932-12-05
Died 1929-07-19? Cross-dressing hermit of Cape Cod. Pictured dressed as an old woman, with bonnet and knitting needles; draped in blanket and holding broom in doorway; playing as a torero with a blanket and a steer
Characters.Man in top-hat
Characters. With broom in doorway, in field with steer
People. Humorous smile
Feature Story. With knitting needles
Seated by cast iron stove inside
Leaning out of window; With man in top hat; more pretend bullfighting
Feature story, coffin, sleeps in coffin, suicide. Pictured with the coffin
Feature story, Coffin. Pictured working at Koolmotor Gasoline service station
Feature story, Coffin. Close-up portrait shot
Character- man who made his own coffin (Traveler used story) July 27, 1926. Pictured standing by the coffin
Types. With his cart
Norris Sunday Herald. Pictured sitting with dog and cat pets. Feature, lecture
Full length portrait
Pictured with boxes of decorations and tinsel box marked “Fireproof — will not tarnish”
Six men pictured with newly-cut Christmas tree
Tin Peddler. Pictured on horse-drawn wagon with wares
See Carlyle Cat’s Club. Close up portraits; pictured with wagon. Blackington broadcast a Yankee Yarn about Taylor (1944-07-27): after the repeal of Prohibition, cat-lover James W. Taylor decided he wanted to make a nightclub just for cats. He converted his barn into a club room for all the strays of Carlisle, complete with a special “members only” entrance, bunks for each cat in the barn loft, and a posted menu for the 30 or more cats which would frequent his property. Taylor kept a maternity ward for kittens, a jail for misbehaving cats, and club members paid mouse-catching “dues” (one mouse a month).
Feature Story. Cat’s Club. Holding two cats; painting door
Feature Story.Cat’s Club. Laying flowers on cat graves marked: “Tootsy the Pet, 1922-29,” “In Memory of Daisy, 1916-29,” “Buffy, 1915-29,” “Toby Taylor, 1911-1927”
Portrait; Taylor in front of cat house labeled “Kats Klub”
Characters.
Singer of New England folk songs. Pictured with two children in front of chopped wood; portrait with corn cob pipe and ax; sharpening ax.
Garden House. May Laurence was known among ornithologists as “The Hummingbird Lady.” From her obituary in the 1938 American Ornithologists’ Union publication The Auk, vol. 55 no. 2 (Apr. 1938): “May Rogers (Mrs. Laurence J.) Webster, who was elected an Associate of the A. O. U. in 1936, died in Boston on January 7, 1938. Born in Scituate, Massachusetts, the eldest daughter of Thomas L. and Ella S. (Nickerson) Rogers, she spent most of her life since her marriage in 1901, at Holderness, New Hampshire, where her intense interest in Nature found expression in many ways, especially in the attracting of birds about her home and in gardening. Ten years ago she began experiments in taming wild Hummingbirds, and with such success that friends and others came from far and near to see the numbers of these birds that haunted her gardens and sipped from the tubes of sweets that she prepared for them. In 1932, she founded the New Hampshire Nature Camp at Lost River, having obtained for that use the State reservation. Here each summer she personally supervised the conduct of the camp which provided a course under competent instructors to prepare, teachers, camp counselors and others for giving work in nature study.”
Feeding hummingbirds. Enveloped dated 1942-08-07, but most likely from an earlier 1930s visit, given her May Laurence’s founding of the New Hampshire Nature Camp in 1932 (a copy of a pamphlet for it is pictured in Blackington’s coat pocket) and her death in 1938.
Characters. Maine Hermit who lived near Hicks Pond, pictured with his small row boat that he would rent to those going fishing. Blackington would go back and visit him again in 1943. Pictured in his WWI overcoat.
Game Warden George French. According to Ossipee Riverlands: Effingham, Freedom, and the Great Ossipee River, French (1882-1970) was an award-winning commercial photographer “renowned for his artistic compositions and country life perspectives” and “Maine’s official vacationland tourism photographer from 1936 to 1955.” He accompanied Blackington on this second trip to see Benny Wells.
Man, Woman, and Porter getting off RR Train
Musician, old man of No. Sutton, N.H. “Uncle George Willey,” 86, a Civil War drummer boy all set to pound a little jazz on his one man band
One man band
Cop and friend George Willey at Boston Police Dept. Traffic Box
Lensmaker. Along with Henry Smith of Pinkham and Smith (an optical company in Boston which filled eyeglass prescriptions and supplied optics for binoculars and telescopes), he created a new soft-focus lens based off of a Dallmeyer example brought to him by photographer F. Holland Day, cousin and friend of Pictorialist photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn. Numerous photographic and cinematographic patents to his name: a rocking photographic tray and lens-grinding ma
chine in 1905, a projection lamp guard in 1922, a wide-angle projection device in 1927, an auxiliary lens system for wide-angle projection of talkies in 1934, and a device for even illumination of a projected image in 1935. Feature story. Pictured with calipers and large lens element.
See Wolfe, Walter G. At his work bench with optical equipment. Industrial Lens.
Feature story. With pipe
Contact print of shot at his work bench.
Feature story. At his work bench. Demonstrating the hand-creation of a lens. Pictured using an antique optical collimator.
With pipe
Catherine Hance, Ms. Lake Winnipesaukee 1930, buying apples
Interior of schoolhouse, with teacher at desk in front of blackboard and American flag.
Animals. Bear cub eating from a frying pan
Animals. In the woods
Under a tree
Moose
Moose
Two mice. Feature story on the curious and hardy species of the Muskeget Island beach mouse. Pictured olding pins in paws and mouth
Novelties- Autographed Quilt. Mrs. E. N. Peabody
Parade of General Motors, Tremont St.
Aviation- A plane shown just as it took off from aircraft carrier “Lexington” during the Navy maneuvers off the Virginia Capes witnesseed by Pres. Hoover. The planes left the deck at intervals of 8-12 seconds. AP Photo 5/23/30
Aviation- How an air sailor boy boards his ship from his plane. Hoisting plane aboard Battleship “California” during battle practice in Pacific. Paramount News from AP 2/24/28
Aviation- “China Clipper” outward bound for Manila on the first transpacific air mail flight, shown soaring out westward over the Golden Gate– first stop Hawaii 2,400 miles away. The shoreline is visible below and in the background are the hills on the Marin (northern) side of the gate. AP Photo 11/22/35
8 p.m. Beginning in 1929, mail-carrying ocean liners between Europe and the U.S. were fitted with catapults to launch mail planes which would reach their destination before the ship itself, speeding mail delivery. In May of 1932 the liner Europa’s Junkers Ju 46 catapult mail plane was feared lost after its distress signals were picked up and numerous Coast Guard vessels were dispatched for rescue efforts, but the craft unexpectedly arrived safely in Boston and the pilot denied having broadcast the distress signals.
Birds- Feature story
Birds. Four on tree limb
California Department of Agriculture inspection station, intended to prevent the entry of plant pests.
See article in Boston Globe 1930-06-15, “Bungalow with electric lights built exclusively for six cats.”
Animals. Toy duck
Animals. Kitten among baby rabbits in hutch
Cats
Cats- “Kitty” Gordon awake
Cat. On running board
Playing with mouse in doorway
Cats. Cat reclining; two kittens; cat with mouse in mouth
bathing Thereas Huntley Hilda Kempton
Print Made TNE. RB (revolving back) model Graflex camera is pictured. Date is approximate given camera model.
Child Studies
Print made TNE file
Boys with sea clams
“In the 1920s, Falmouth produced more strawberries per acre than any other part of the country.” SPNEA holds more images of strawberry pickers by Blackington.
Child Studies
Newspaper, Daily Item evening edition from Lynn, MA, in Chinese.
Dam- Photo made 1935 or 36 from Herald– used as part of Roto composite
Dam
Trick photo
Showing havoc wrought by the cyclone at Rock Springs, Texas, which claimed more than three score lives. Photo shows ruins of the Gilmore, Bldg, which housed the masonic Lodge, a bakery and a print shop. Acme Photo
From Look Magazine, May 1937, Vol 1. No 5
Earthquakes- Apartment house
Earthquakes- Wrecked Young Hotel
Earthquakes- Scene of apartment house
A section of one of the walls of the New London Consolidated School which crashed in an explosino here yesterday, killing nearly 700 students, maiming many others. AP Photo 3/19/37
Brush fire, fanned by a high wind, brush fire continues to crackle over the country-side and hills of five Southern California counties. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed and thousands are menaced as regular and volunteer fire fighters try to check the blaze. Here is an air view of the burning area. Acme 10/26/35
Flood- Houses of employees of the American Rolling Mill Co. here reveal the depth of the inundation of the swollen Ohio River as it has come to many localities in the Ohio River vallies. Wide World photo 1/25/37
Flood- Business signs hand high and practically dry- in this flooded business street of Carrollton, but business itself has been thoroughly drowned out. The inundation was caused by turbulent flood waters of the Ohio River. A. P. Photo 1/27/37
Flood- Relief workers shown with a load of coal for citizens marooned on second floors in the flood district. The coal is hauled to windows by ropes. A.P. Photo 1/25/37
Flood- Aerial view made by a staff photographer of the Chicago herald and examiner from a sky liner of the Trans-Continental and Western Airlines, shows many homes from which hundreds of families have had to flee because of the fast rising flood waters. Int. News Photo 1/ 23/37
Flood- Dozens of C.G. surf boats are loaded onto flat cars at Pier 13 to be rushed to the flood area along the Ohio River where they will be used in rescue work. Int. News Photo 1/25/37
Flood- Ohio River boats swung at rest in 12 feet of water, sheltered by the buildings of what last week was the bustling heart of Louisville’s wholesale district. Boats in street were used to remove refugees from flood area. A. P. Photo 1/24/37
Flood- signs like this one shown here were posted throughout the business district here today, warning flood refugees and others of the importance of boiling water to prevent disease. A Red Cross relief worker points to the sign in a store window as flood refugees, carrying salvaged clothing and bedding, look on. AP Photo 1/27/37
Flood- Children got a “shot in the arm” as authorities battled to stave off disease in the flood area. A.P. Photo 1/28/37
Flood- Thousands of cans of food, piled high in a relief station here and guarded by soldiers, as shown here, awai
t disposition to the refugees of this city’s worst flood. Distribution will begin as soon as the varieties of food are sorted and transportation facilities are made available. That no one will go hungry is the plan of releif officials. A.P. Photo 1/27/37
Flood – This exclusive picture depicts the tense drama of an actual recue in Wayne County, N.J., where the overflow of the Pequanock River imperiled the entire valley. A ladder from a police rescue boat is raised to the attic of the mountain view home. The first floor is completely swamped and the automobiles on the left give an idea of the water’s height. Notice the goat over the man’s shoulder. It too was saved from encroaching waters. Over 40 families were rescued by boatmen who made several trips to ferry them to dry land. Int. Photo
Flood- A cow and a chicken huddle miserably together on this floating debris as the Ohio River engulfs the countryside. A.P. Photo 1/28/37
Flood- It takes more than flood or famine to keep the stork from going on his appointed rounds. Here is a scene in the market auditorium, Wheeling refuge for flood sufferers, where a temporary lying-in hospital was set up for Mrs. Carrie Rollison who expected a baby hourly. Shown in the photo left to right are male nurse Warren Melzdorf, Mrs. Rollison, Jackie and Betty Rollison, two of her children, and nurse Gertrude Walters. Int. News Photo 1/25/37
Flood- The news that her home on the island section of Wheeling had fallen victim to the raging Ohio River was the last straw for Mrs. Lillian Cale, who is shown in Market Auditorium, flood sanctuary with two children as she wept bitterly. The girls are Evelyn and Dorothy. Int. News Photo 1/25/37
Flood refugees- The traditional rule of the sea is bowwed by relief agencies in flooded wheeling. Here the flood refugees as women and children are given the first issues of food. Latest reports indicate that the river had dropped two feet from the crest stage here but is still eight feet above flood stage. Int News Photo 1/25/37
Flood
Flood – Git a hoss – or, better still, get a row boat. That’s the best means of getting around during the height of the flood in Southern California. The photograph shows an auto park on valley boulevard, near El Monte. The rising waters caught the cars and held them prisoners — they couldn’t float away. Acme Photo
Forest Fires- More than a thousand troops from Aldershot equipped with steel helmet and gas masks assited by hundreds of firemen, police, and civilians fought the huge heathland fire between Hartley, Wintney near Basingstoke, and Minley, near Camberley. Thousands of acres of heathland have been destroyed as well as hundreds of thousands of fire trees planted under an afforestation scheme. Photo shows troops stripped to the waist and wearing steel helmets fighting the fire at Minley Woods. Acme picture
Forest Fires- Copy Kagel Canyon fire (used as illustration in March 1936 issue of “F.F”
Forest Fires- on Tea Kettle Mt., Flathead National Forest
Forest Fire
Forest Fires- (Int.) Aerial view of forest fire sweeping Deer Park, L. I. 10 square miles of brush threatened several villages in its path. Fire started morning of April 25 alongside highway. Photo shows back burn on road at right at foot of steep hill
Forest Fires- Wading River fire endangered boy scout camp Wauwapex CQ which lay in the path of the fire. Firemen are shown drawing water from Lake Deep Pond found in the foreground
Pickwick Club. SPNEA holds more images from the Blackington Service on the Pickwick Club disaster.
Dogs
Children and dog cart
Feature Picture
Dog
Dog. Close-up portrait
Dogs
18
48-star US flag
48-star US flags. One on a ship and one on a pole
Horses. 100+ horses in a field
Horses. 100+ horses in a field
Horses
Horses
Horses
Geranimo (Dr. Barry)
Characters. Kids Pageant
The body of Claude Neal, 23 year old negro, shown hanging to a tree after he was taken from jail by a mob who tortured and killed him, following his reported confession of having attacked and killed 23 year old Lola Cannidy, near Marianna, Fla., recently. The on-looker is unidentified. Acme 10/29/34
The body of John M. Homes dangling from a tree limb after he and Thomas H. Thurmond had been lynched by an infuriated mob at San Jose, Calif. Which bettered in the jail door and overpowered officers to remove the confessed kidnap slayers of young Brooke hart. A crowd of 6,000 watched as the men were hanged to trees in a park across from the jail. Acme 11/28/33
Breaking down jail door
The crush to see the double lynching of John Holmes and Thomas Thurmond at San Jose, Cal., Nov. 25, was duplicated by another crush of souvenir hunters, eager to get bits of rope, tree limbs, etc. used in the St. Jame Pk. Executions. Some of them are shown whittling off pieces of one of the trees used for gibbets. Acme 11/29/33
Smouldering body of Missouri lynch victim. A crowd of 9,000 persons stormed the Buchanan County Jail at St. Joseph, Mo. Nov. 28 and took Lloyd Warner, negro, from his cell and strung him up to a tree. They then burned his body with gasoline and the photo shows his still smouldering body and a part of the tree limb that he was strung up to. He was accused of attacking a white girl. Acme 1/28/33
Feature picture – Hobo for the County Fair
Penobscot River showing Eastern Steamship liner “Camden” near Bucksport.
Steamboats- Acadia
Woman at well
View of the city
Shipyard in foreground
growing wild on the highway at Chebgue, near Yarmouth
Ruins of old fort, from C.N.D.B., Ottawa
From C.N.D.B., Ottawa. Looking across water to town, cannon in foreground
Steamships- Scene in dining room
Steamships- Crowd playing the horses on promenade deck
Steamship
Historical. Shot of house and yard
Legion- Belgium Tomb of Unknown Soldier
Legion – Tomb of Unknown Soldier. Ceremony with American veterans visiting the tomb beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
Man on 3-inch anti-aircraft gun
Herbert photo
Line drawing
Ships- at dawn, masterpiece, postive
Ships- Battleship
Remarkable photo just released for publication shows survivors of a torpedoed ship, between life and death, hanging on to overturned boat. This remarkably clear picture shows how, near to death, these survivors of a torpedoed ship hand on to their boat, waiting to be picked ub by the U-boat that sunk them. This photo was taken and suppressed by the Captain of the U-boat but released by the new German republic. Photo shows a close up view of the survivors clinging to their overturned boat. Keystone View Co. N.Y. 12341F
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Language:
Provenance
Gift of Yankee Publishing Co., 2013.
Processing Information
Processed by David Bendiksen with the assistance of I. Eliot Wentworth, 2014-2015.
Digitized content
Most though not quite all of the Blackington images have been digitized and are available online through Credo.
Related Material
Blackington’s photographic work is represented in three other major institutions:
- Yankee Publishing Collection (Historic New England): ca.2,000 items, 1890-1939 (PC053).
- Blackington Collection (Center of Southwest Studies), Fort Lewis College: 431 glass plate negatives, film negatives, and lantern slides, primarily of the American Southwest, 1932-1936 (P 049).
- Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine
Several episodes of Blackington’s radio show Yankee Yarns are available for listening over the internet.
Copyright and Use (More information
)
Cite as: Alton H. Blackington Photograph Collection (PH 061). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.