Tag: 1902

A panorama of Minnehaha Falls

At its beginning, photography required innovators. Clever problem solvers envisioned the next innovations and then invented the solutions that would make those innovations possible.

One of these was Chicago’s John Carbutt, who invented—among other things—the celluloid film that made motion pictures possible. Carbutt, of course, also photographed Minnehaha Falls on several occasions in the 1860s. Another Minnehaha photographer who was a prominent photographic inventor and who worked at the turn of the last century was another Chicagoan: George Raymond Lawrence perfected aerial photography. It was quite a feat. Airplanes had not yet been invented.

A man with an impressive mustache who is probably in his 30s.
George R. Lawrence, probably taken after he perfected his “flashlight photography” and learned to contain the smoke and sparks of the simultaneous chemical explosions he used to illuminated large crowd shots.

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The “Hermits” of Minnehaha Park, Part 3.

Storyteller or liar?  William Herrick–the Hermit of Minnehaha Park–was some of each.  And Herrick told such convincing, engaging tales that it’s hard to believe that his stories are not true, even 100 years after his death.

His artful storytelling included details that both impressed his audience and added verisimilitude. When he told the story of his Civil War career, he left out the part about never seeing combat. He was stationed in Kansas, there to build bridges and protect the mail trains. Instead he said (truthfully) that he was stationed “near the Blue Cut country where the famous Younger and James brothers held forth.” Except that he’d been mustered out and sent home before the first James gang robbery. Surely that detail is unimportant in the higher calling of telling a good story.

a picture of an older man wearing a hat. And a mustache
William W. Herrick in the early 1900s, when he was renowned as the Hermit of Minnehaha Falls. Stories painted him as a kindly if eccentric man who had lived a life of glorious adventure but now just wanted to quietly cultivate his garden.–from “Hermit of Minnehaha Falls” edited by Samuel A. Hatch

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The “Hermits” of Minnehaha Park. Part 2.

During the later part of the 19th century, photography was in the midst of a major transition as an art form.  Since its invention, photographers had concentrated on likenesses and “fidelity to nature.”  But as the 19th century wound down, they began producing images in the style of paintings, moody and atmospheric works of art.

A group of women on the sore, staring out to the sea that is just out of frame on the left.
“Watching for the Return” by Alfred Steiglitz.

Evocative photographs like this one helped define photography as an art form. This image was exhibited by the Minneapolis Camera Club and the Fine Arts Society at their first joint photographic salon in February 1903. Steiglitz was a nationally prominent artistic photographer in the Photo Secession movement.

Continue reading “The “Hermits” of Minnehaha Park. Part 2.”