John Becker photograph
collection, ca. 1910-1924
Descriptive Inventory for the Collection at Chicago Historical
Society, Research Center.
Please
address questions to:
Chicago
History Museum, Research Center
1601
North Clark Street
Chicago,
IL 60614-6038
Web-site:
http://www.chicagohistory.org/Research
© Copyright
2014, Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60614-6038
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Title: John Becker
photograph collection, ca. 1910-1924
Storage: Box Lot
(3 11 x 14 in. boxes; 46 4 x 5 in. negative boxes, 22 5 x 7 in. negative
boxes--GN0118-0185)
Accession number: 1983.0127
Restriction: To consult the glass negatives in this collection in the
Research Center it is necessary to make an advance appointment (email: Research@chicagohistory.org ).
This descriptive inventory includes:
1 Biographical sketch
2 Description of the collection
3 Container list for negatives
Biographical Sketch
John Becker earned his living as a carpenter and
handyman, but he was also an accomplished photographer who spent many hours
documenting the people who lived in his neighborhood in South Chicago during
the 1910's and 1920's. There is no
indication of when he first started taking pictures or when he stopped. It would be hasty to assume that the
negatives in this collection constitute the whole of his work. It is more likely that other negatives were
destroyed or lost during his lifetime or following his death in 1957.
Becker's photographic skills were probably
self-taught. He worked with view cameras
capable of producing 4 x 5 and 5 x 7 inch glass plate negatives, carefully recording
in notebooks his negative numbers, exposure times, and brief and often cryptic
subject identifications. The attention
paid to such meticulous record keeping suggests that he was serious about his
photography. He advertised his services
to the amateur photographer, for whom he offered to provide duplicates,
developing, copying, and enlarging for the "lowest prices.”
Born in Hobart, Indiana on December 15, 1879, Becker's
parents were Hilair and Annie (Pemmer) Becker.
His family moved to Chicago when he and his sister Clara were
children. A bachelor, he spent his
entire adult life living in the family residence at 8925 Escanaba Avenue where
he operated both his carpentry and photography businesses.
In addition to his interest in photography, Becker maintained
a life long hobby of constructing furniture from discarded sewing spools. Desks, hope chests, cuckoo clocks, radios,
and even a miniature spool camera were all made by Becker in his free time. A collection of this spool furniture was
donated to the Chicago Historical Society by Becker's relatives after his
death. Unfortunately, the furniture
became infested with insects and was de-accessioned and destroyed in 1972. All that remains are a small group of
photographs made by Becker of these objects.
John Becker died on November 7, 1957 at the age of
78. Following his wishes, his collection
of glass plate negatives and a small number of original photographs were
donated to the Society.
Description of the Collection:
The John Becker Collection consists of approximately
1,360 4 x 5 and 5 x 7 inch glass plate negatives and 153 original photographs,
45 postcards, and 27 stereoviews. The
strength of these images lies in their ability to depict everyday life as lived
by ordinary people, photographed in their own environments. There are no candid poses here. Becker's subjects are always aware of the
presence of the camera. They gaze
seriously into its lens and concentrate on the formality of the moment. Yet unlike studio portraits, these photographs
show us people together with objects that were meaningful to them. The work place is explored as a backdrop for
portraits and by photographing people within the context of their jobs, Becker documents the kinds of things they did to earn
a living. The pride associated with
owning an automobile, truck, or motorcycle is evident in many photographs. Leisure activities such as picnicking in the
park, boating, playing tennis, and general partying were favorite subjects for
Becker's camera and are well represented in the collection. Street scenes illustrate the mix of
residential and commercial architecture and the relationship of these buildings
to the street and to each other. Neighborhood events of strictly local interest
and fleeting importance such as parades, fires, funerals, snowstorms, or moving a building to a
new address were all considered worthy of documentation by Becker. Also included is a small, richly detailed
series of images taken of an unidentified farm (most likely in Indiana or Wisconsin)
that depicts daily activities of farm life.
The 4 x 5 inch negatives in this collection retain the
original order assigned by Becker. They
are organized by negative numbers that correspond to numbers written in two
inventory log books kept by the photographer.
This number is located in the upper left corner of the negative sleeve.
At the time of acquisition, negatives were stored in dirty, acidic envelopes
(often more than one negative per sleeve) and a negative number and subject
identification were written on most envelopes.
However, because of Becker's habit of putting more than one negative in
an envelope yet assigning only one number to the envelope, it is often
difficult to determine which negative the subject identification refers
to. Thus the chances for
mis-identification are great. When the
negatives were re-sleeved in archival envelopes, the negatives numbers and
descriptive information were transcribed onto the new envelopes. But when two or more negatives with the same
negative number were found in one envelope, descriptive information was
transferred only onto the first envelope in the sequence.
All of the 5 x 7 inch negatives and some 4 x 5 inch
negatives in this collection were organized by Becker according to box
number. They were not given individual
negative numbers, nor were they captioned.
For this reason, it is necessary to consult the inventory notebooks for
the subjects of these negatives.
Becker's first inventory notebook contains information
for negatives numbered 1-448. These
negatives are not part of the collection.
The second inventory notebook contains information for negatives
numbered 449-1,000. It also contains
information for the 5 x 7 inch boxes labeled 1-15 (boxes 9, 11, 14, and 15 were
not part of the donation). The numbering
sequence for the collection begins with negative number 660.
The collection also includes a small assortment of
original photographs, stereoviews, and postcards made by Becker as well as
several photograph processing manuals. A
selection of 138 negatives was printed by the Chicago Historical Society and
file prints have been placed in the Master Vertical Files. A duplicate set of prints is stored together
as a lot.
Inventory by:
Maureen O'Brien Will, July 1983
Container List
Box Number Negative Number
1 660-669
2 670-678
3 679-687
4 688-697
5 698-706
6 708-718
7 719-727
8 728-737
9 738-746
10 747-753
11 760-767
12 768-776
13 777-783
14 784-792
15 793-800
16 804-809
17 810-814, 823
18 824-827-B
19 828-833-A
20 840-845
21 846-857
22 858-861
23 862-867
24 868-872
25 873-876
26 877-881-B
27 882-A - 884-B
28 885-A - 891-B
29 889-A - 891-B
30 892-A - 895
31 896-A - 900
32 901-906
33 907-909, 1000
34 221 (See
sheet in box for identification)
35 Bessemer Park
36 Bessemer Park
37 Spring Brook Stock Farm, So. Chicago Laundry Company Trucks, Misc. portraits
38 Funeral of
1909 Crib Fire Victims
39 Farm scenes,
saloon, unidentified
40 Unidentified
farm scenes, church, switchboard operator
41 Unidentified
portraits, automobiles
42 Unidentified
portraits, automobiles
43 Unidentified
portraits
44 Unidentified
misc.
45 "Frank
Becker" unidentified
46 Unidentified
"Box 33"
47 755-759
Becker's Box "1"
48 833-839
Becker's box "3"
49 847-852
Becker's box "4"
50 Becker's box
"5", See inventory
51 Becker's box
"6", See inventory
52 Becker's box
"7", see inventory
53 Becker's box
"8", see inventory
54 Becker's box
"8", see inventory
55 Becker's box
"8", see inventory
56 Becker's box
"10", see inventory
57 Becker's box
"10", see inventory
58 Becker's box
"10", see inventory
59 Becker's box
"12", see inventory
60 Becker's box
"12", see inventory
61 Becker's box
"12", see inventory
62 Becker's box
"13-B", see inventory
63 Unidentified:
house moving, autos, beer wagon, funeral, townscapes
64 Funeral 1912,
snow scenes 1916-1918
65 Recamier
girls 1916, unidentified portraits
66 Unidentified
portraits
67 Unidentified
portraits
68 Unidentified
portraits, Bessemer Park, parade
Photographs
26 unidentified photographs
21 homemade stereo cards
9 photographs taken with spool camera
8 photographs of Becker
8 miscellaneous photographs
6 stereo cards of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (not
by Becker)
45 postcards
miscellaneous photography manuals
Master photographs made from selected glass negatives