For the PaulPaulson and Anders Swenson families, it was necessary (as it
was for the majority of the Swedish immigrants) to work hard on their farms
and/or at their city jobs for survival. But,
photography MUST have been a very strong passion for this family.
A great-granddaughter of Paul and Elina Paulson – Bet Ison -
is herself not a stranger to passions.
She seems to tackle major projects that bring life back to everyday
items via the older crafts and processes.
Bet lives with her husband Cecil Ison in Eastern
Kentucky. For a hobby, she has completed
many hand stitched quilts using the old fashioned wooden frames. Her quilting designs are very unique and are very
colorful.
But, this story is not about Bet. It is about the desire of her ancestors the
Paul Paulson family and their Swenson cousins who took a significant number of
photographs in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and Texas in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries.
We were delighted to receive an email to our SweAme website
when Bet had noticed that we had on the website an image of one of her “glass
plate” photos. The photo that she found
was taken in Olivia, Calhoun County, Texas.
It was first printed in the original Swedish language Svenskarne
I Texas, I Ord Och Bild book
on page 1147, published in 1918. This
photo is of a young couple – Severin Swenson and Emma Wilson who are sitting
patently on the seat of an oxen drawn wagon for the photographer.
Bet has uploaded an image of the original “glass plate” of this photo at: Severin
Swenson and Emma Wilson.
Think about it, what Bet has here. Some of you can barely
remember the cameras that required those little rolls of film that had to be
sent off to be developed. Much less
remember or know about the process of taking pictures that were documented on
large “glass plates”. That was even
before my time.
Bet Ison is still working hard to scan and document these
glass plate photos. But now that she has
a good start and a good process of identifying and preserving these photos, she
now wants to share them with the world via the Internet.
In Bet’s words:
Starting about 1893 -- during
all those years, those travels, those metamorphosing from Swede to American
--- the Paulson family took pictures!!!! And in the end the boxes of the
glass plate negatives ended up in my cousin's basement in Minnesota where they
lay until one day my cousin said -- "and there are all those negatives
-- who knows whats on them -- and it would be too expensive to find
out....." and I said -- "I think I can digitize those on my home
scanner..." So here I am 450 negatives later with quite an interesting
treasure. And the rest of my family is digging up the pictures that were
originally made from the negatives and which were sometimes sent as
postcards with messages and post dates (and sometimes not.) The glass
plates end about 1917 -- about the time of the birth of my mother - when
they switched to film negatives.
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You can view her Blog presentation of the photos that were taken
by her ancestors at:
http://swedishamericanphotos.blogspot.com
To enjoy future Bet Ison Blog posts, submit your email address on her Blog to receive notification emails when she posts the next photos.
AND NOW THAT YOU HAVE
READ THIS FAR, YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO GIVE BET ISON SOME FEEDBACK.
The most important part of this project is the feedback that
you can provide. Yes, I understand most
of you will think that you have no chance of being able to offer any input on her historic
photos. But, you may know more than you
think you do. You might recognize and
see similarities in some of your own historic photos. Maybe not exact locations, but you might be
able to offer a comment to Bet that will lead to a better understanding of what
LIFE as protrayed in these photos was Really like.
How was it “down on the farm” 100 years ago for our Swedish
immigrants? I am sure that these photos
will cause all of us to react in some way or another. So, don’t be SHY. Enlarge and study each photo and offer your comments and/or questions to Bet to help her work
through this process of understanding the reasons that these particular images
were so important to take in the first place.
Finest regards,
David Borg