Great Lakes Vessel Photography
I receive many requests for photos of Great Lakes
vessels. In some cases, I can easily
locate an original photo of the vessel an individual is looking for,
particularly if the vessel sailed in the 20th century.
However, significant problems arise in locating 19th
century vessel photos and few people are aware of the scarcity of early Great
Lakes vessel photos. This
article is designed to help people determine if a particular vessel image is
likely to exist and where they might locate it.
To begin the discussion, a short history of photography is
helpful. The first successful
photographic image was made in 1827, but photography didn’t become available
outside the laboratory until about 1840 with the Daguerreotype. These photos cost nearly a week’s wages for
the average worker. It wasn’t until
about 1851 that the Collodion process made
photography of moving objects possible, and photographers didn’t take much
interest in Great Lakes vessel photography until after
1860. As such, there are no photos of Great
Lakes vessels known prior to 1851.
The earliest known photo of a Great Lakes
vessel is a Daguerreotype of the steamer Mayflower as she lay on the beach near
Conneaut, Ohio
in the winter of 1852/53. Very few other
photos of Great Lakes vessels are known from the
1850s. A shot of the Lady Elgin at Northport,
Michigan from about 1858 exists along with
a handful (perhaps 4 or 5) other vessel photos believed to be from the
1850s. Very few schooners were
photographed until the late 19th century. They were considered unglamorous work vessels
and few people would pay to have a schooner photographed. Nearly all photos taken before 1880 are
consequently of steamers, often with unnamed schooners in the background. One exception is an 1864 photo of the
schooner George W. Ford, taken at Ontonagon, Michigan.
The Civil War was one of the major impetuses for the growth
of field photography and as such, few Great Lakes vessel
photos are known until after about 1865.
Only about thirty photos of Great Lakes vessels
are believed to exist prior to 1865.
After the Civil War, photography became less expensive and many Great
Lakes steamers were photographed.
Still the vast majority of steamers on the Lakes weren’t photographed
until the 1880s.
Many early steamers however, were drawn by noted
artists. Among the most important early Lake
artists was Captain James Van Cleve. Van
Cleve served on Lake vessels in
the 1820s – 1850s and was an accomplished artist. He prepared a series of hand drawn
manuscripts depicting the earliest Great Lakes vessels
from the 1820s – 1850s, drawn from his memory of them. Only a few original Van Cleve manuscripts
still exist, but they are excellent sources for accurate views of important,
early Lake vessels. Another good source for early vessel drawings
is Samuel Ward Stanton’s epic work American Steam Vessels. Published in 1895, the work includes both
ocean and Lake vessels from the
1820s to the 1890s. Stanton’s
drawings are done mostly from original lithographs. Stanton
was one of the most prominent marine artists of his day and ironically was lost
in the sinking of the Titanic.
Many early paintings and lithographs exist of Great
Lakes vessels at various collections around the Lakes. The most important repositories for early Lake
vessel paintings and lithographs are:
The Great Lakes Historical Society –
Vermilion, Ohio
The Marine Museum
of the Great Lakes – Kingston,
Ontario
The Dossin Maritime Museum – Detroit,
Michigan
The Milwaukee
Public Library – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Historical Collections of the Great Lakes
– Perrysburg, Ohio
Many other small collections hold early Lake
vessel lithos and paintings as well, but they can be
difficult to locate. Most of the
important early Lake vessel lithos and paintings have been reproduced in books and
periodicals at some point and can be located through their citation in the
literature.
Great Lakes divers and historians
will be disappointed to learn that the vast majority of Great Lakes
vessels were never photographed. It
wasn’t until after 1890 that even half of the registered vessels on the Lakes
were photographed. There are numerous
instances of Lake schooners
that sailed well into the 20th century, for which no known
photograph exists. Prior to 1890, the
odds of finding a photo of a given Lake vessel are not
good, unless the vessel was a passenger steamer or had some notoriety. Even the legendary steamer Merchant, the
first iron hulled vessel on the Lakes, has no known photos. She was lost in 1875, but only lithographs
survive.
The odds of finding Lake vessel photos and images are estimated as follows:
|
|
|
Steamers
|
Schooners
|
|
|
|
Photo
|
Litho
|
Photo
|
Litho
|
|
1840s
|
|
0%
|
0.5%
|
0%
|
0.5%
|
|
1850s
|
|
0.5%
|
0.5%
|
0%
|
0.5%
|
|
1860s
|
|
1%
|
5%
|
0.5%
|
0.5%
|
|
1870s
|
|
10%
|
35%
|
3%
|
5%
|
|
1880s
|
|
40%
|
40%
|
10%
|
10%
|
|
1890s
|
|
75%
|
70%
|
40%
|
25%
|
|
1900s
|
|
90%
|
90%
|
75%
|
35%
|
The table above reflects the estimated odds of finding an
image of any known vessel from a given period of time. It is estimated using the number of
commercial vessels known on the Lakes during any period divided by the number
of vessel images known from that period.
Percentages between 0% and 1% are shown as 0.5%, but are generally much
lower. As an example, the table above
indicates that 3 of every 100 schooners on the Lakes in the 1870s was photographed during that period. Likewise, 10 of every 100 steamers on the Lakes
during the 1870s was photographed during that period. Conversely, 3/4ths of the steamers on the
Lakes in the 1890s were photographed during that period, but less than half of
the schooners on the Lakes in the 1890s were photographed during that period. It should be noted that certain sub types
within steamers and schooners are over or under represented in images. Work tugs and freight steamers are obviously
far less common in images than passenger steamers. Likewise, scow schooners are also far less
common in images.
In the 1900s, vessel photography became far more common and
nearly all substantial commercial vessels were photographed. The only commercial vessels that sometimes
escaped photography after 1900 were scow schooners, fish tugs and some work
tugs. Photographers such as Andrew Young
and Louis Pesha amassed huge collections of Great
Lakes vessel images in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Young’s collection contains several thousand
images and is now at the Canadian National Archives at Ottawa.
Individuals looking for photos of historic Lake
vessels should begin their search by checking the most
popular online indexes. The two largest
public collections with online searchable vessel photo indexes are the
Historical Collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling
Green State University
and the Milwaukee Public Library. In
addition to these collections, those noted above for lithographs also have
substantial photo collections. Several
private individuals have substantial Great Lakes vessel
photo collections as well. Among these
collectors are C. Patrick Labadie, Ralph Roberts and Ken Thro.
Some problems have arisen concerning the provenance of Great
Lakes vessel images. A
small handful of photographers and original collectors created and/or assembled
nearly all known photo collections around the Lakes. The collections of Rick Wright, Ralph Roberts,
Herman Runge, Louis Pesha,
Pat Labadie, Andrew Young and Ken Thro probably account for 90% of the known
historic photos of Great Lakes vessels. All of these photographers/collectors traded
images and it is consequently difficult to determine which collection to credit
a given image to. As a general rule, I
credit an image to the collection that made the print I am using.
Individuals with additional questions or corrections to the
above can contact me at Brendon@baillod.com.