Edward A. Rogers collection of Cardinell-Vincent Company and Panama-Pacific International Exposition photographs, circa 1914-1925, bulk 1915

Summary

Creators:

Cardinell-Vincent Co., H.S. Crocker & Co., and Rogers, Edward A.

Abstract:

The Edward A. Rogers collection is the largest known vestige of the archive of the Cardinell-Vincent Company, the official photographers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. It comprises approximately 6,700 photographic prints housed in albums, 2,166 glass negatives, 124 film negatives, and 115 panoramic film negatives. The great majority of images document the exposition throughout its 1915 run, but some commercial photographs taken by Cardinell-Vincent date from the decade after the fair. During the construction period in 1913 and 1914 the exposition's photographic contract was held by H.S. Crocker & Co., and a significant number of their images are present.

Extent:

Approximately 9,100 photographs

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

The Edward A. Rogers collection is the largest known vestige of the archive of the Cardinell-Vincent Company, the official photographers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. It comprises approximately 6,700 photographic prints housed in albums, 2,166 glass negatives, 124 film negatives, and 115 panoramic film negatives. The great majority of images document the Exposition throughout its 1915 run, but some commercial photographs taken by Cardinell-Vincent date from the decade after the fair. During the construction period in 1913 and 1914 the exposition's photographic contract was held by H.S. Crocker & Co., and a significant number of their images are present.

Building exteriors and grounds views are numerous and depict the neo-classical designs of the various architects engaged to create the pavilions and courtyards. Night views of electrical illumination of the fair are of interest for their grand use of relatively new technology. A few dozen uncommon views of The Joy Zone document its amusement attractions, including construction views of the Gettysburg attraction, workers on the Panama Canal model, the Grand Canyon attraction, and the Creation attraction.

Approximately 350 negatives and 1,250 prints document building interiors and exhibits. Exhibit subjects encompass technology, agriculture, transportation, domestic consumer products, and health. Examples include: the O-Cedar Mop Co., Heinz 57, Dutch beer and products, bottled water, tobacco, MJB coffee, Columbia Gramophone, International Harvester, the Red Cross, the Holland-America Steamship Line, Hoosier kitchen cabinets, Baldwin pianos, Eureka vacuums, "Primitive Man," the Mouth Hygiene Association of America, Bausch & Lomb Optical, and Cutter Laboratories, among many others.

Art works, attractions, performances, events, and group portraits are well represented. Attendees from honored groups posed for group portraits, usually in panoramic format, or were photographed at banquet tables. Events such as ground-breakings and dedications, visits by celebrities or officials (e.g. Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan) are found. Gatherings to watch aviators barnstorming over the bay are a highlight, including one view of the fatal crash of Lincoln Beachey. Athletic events, automobile races, parades, a "Peace Pageant," livestock shows and horse races, polo matches, Chinese kite flying, and Japanese sumo wrestling are all documented, among many other topics.

Some photographs of non-PPIE subjects are included. Cardinell-Vincent continued in commercial photography after the close of the fair, and about 200 images are present of Bay Area locations between 1915 and 1925. Commercial or public buildings are pictured, as well as group portraits at events and commercial product images. The panoramic negatives include some striking broad landscape views of small towns and rural valleys in the greater Bay Area – regions that would see heavy development and suburbanization in the century after they were taken.

Physically, the Rogers collection consists of 2,166 glass negatives (ranging from approximately 4x5 inches to 12x20 inches), and 10 ledger volumes (termed "albums") containing approximately 6,700 photographic prints. In addition, there are 124 film negatives and 115 panoramic Cirkut camera film negatives.

Biographical / historical:

The Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915, located on San Francisco Bay just inside the Golden Gate, was a world's fair celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal and all the progress in industry and commerce suggested by such an occasion. It also marked the rebirth of San Francisco a mere nine years after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Participants in the fair included thirty-two states and U.S. territories and twenty-eight foreign countries.

The Cardinell-Vincent Company were the official photographers for the Exposition from late 1914 to its opening on February 20th, 1915, and throughout the nine months of the fair to closing day in early December, 1915. They had a large staff of photographers and a monopoly on photographic imagery. Even amateur photography was closely regulated and licensed in order to protect this monopoly. The H.S. Crocker Company held the photographic contract for the period of construction, in 1913-1914. Both companies were stationary firms, and used photographic imagery to create view books, postcards, and countless illustrated souvenirs.

The history and dispersal of the archival photograph files of the Cardinell-Vincent Company and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company are not fully documented. It appears that Cardinell-Vincent kept custody of their photograph archives for some decades after the exposition, and they were not part of the archives of the Exposition Company. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition Records, originating with the Exposition Company, also included many photographs, but chiefly those taken during the construction period under the contract with H.S. Crocker & Co. The records of the Exposition Company were given to The Bancroft Library ((BANC MSS C-A 190) by the Trustees of the War Memorial, San Francisco in 1938 and 1939, and this gift included thousands of photographic prints (BANC PIC 1939.006), chiefly of the 1913-1914 construction period, in ledger book albums similar to those used by Cardinell-Vincent. Other photographic prints were given to the San Francisco Public Library by the Exposition Company. The Cardinell-Vincent Company negatives and ledger albums appear to have been dispersed in the third quarter of the twentieth century, with the largest (and only documented) dispersal being a February 1979 sale of over 10,000 negatives at the California Book Auction Galleries in San Francisco. These were sold in 260 small lots.

Edward A. ("Ed") Rogers was proprietor of Photographers Supply, on Bryant Street in San Francisco. The date he acquired the negatives and albums of photographs is not known, but they were in his possession by the 1970s, and perhaps much earlier. He had a copy of the 1979 auction catalog from the California Book Auction Galleries, but the library has not been able to identify any of the auction lots among the Rogers collection, so it is assumed all parts of his collection were in his custody prior to this sale. The negatives and albums were stored in the offices of his photographic supply warehouse, and from time to time he gave historians access to the albums, resulting in publication of some images (in, for example, Donna Ewald and Peter Clute's 1991 "San Francisco Invites the World", and Laura Ackley's 2014 "San Francisco's Jewel City.") Ed Rogers died in September 2013.

Acquisition information:

The Edward A. Rogers collection of Cardinell-Vincent Company and Panama-Pacific International Exposition photographs was a gift of the family of Edward A. Rogers in 2014.

Physical location:

Many Bancroft Library collections are stored off-site and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Note:

In most cases, negatives and prints were not matched and there is little correlation between surviving prints and negatives. When matching negatives and prints were noticed, a reference from one to the other was noted.

Captions for negatives, when present, have been transcribed from original sleeves, which have been photocopied to archival paper and stored with negatives. Most photographic prints in albums were captioned, and these too were transcribed for this finding aid. When no captions or insufficient captions were present, titles were devised by library assistants and recorded within square brackets. Transcriptions are not precise in that obvious abbreviated words have been spelled out to aid in search and retrieval.

Transparent adhesive labels are present on many negatives identifying photographer as "H.S. Crocker official photograph" or "Cardinell-Vincent Co. San Francisco. Official Photographers, P.P.I.E."

Additional exhibit building locations, architectural names, and works of art were identified using the following books:

• Official Catalogue of Exhibitors Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. Published for the Division of Exhibits by the Wahlgreen Company, official publishers, 1915.
• San Francisco's Jewel City: The Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, by Laura Ackley. Published by Heyday, Berkeley, CA, 2015.
• The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition; a pictorial survey of the art of the Panama-Pacific international exposition, described by Stella G. S. Perry. Published by San Francisco, P. Elder and Company, 1915.

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website