Rare look at a crew atop an ore dock in Escanaba ready to load an ore freighter.
All images used in this section and subsequent galleries are from the Mikel B. Classen Historical Pictures Collection.
Historical images are windows into the past, frozen moments in time. Paintings, drawings, photography, all reveal our world as it was in past times. From the mosaics of the ancient Mediterranean to paintings of the Renaissance, our understanding of the looks and cultures come from these past pictures. Certainly, writings help, but our imaginations can take us only so far.
Ojibwa Native American pictograph at Agawa Bay in Ontario, Canada, depicting a horse and rider.
The same is true when trying to retrace the paths of the past in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Of course its history begins like all history on this continent with the Native Americans. The Ojibwa and their descendants lived in these wild lands for possibly, thousands of years. Though they had no alphabetic writing as we know it, they did speak through pictures or pictographs and petroglyphs. These are the only images of life and culture that is pre-European.
An engraving of Ojibwa fishing in the St. Mary’s River at Sault Ste. Marie.
When the Europeans came, they brought with them journalists, artists, and eventually photographers. The value of these early images to understanding a land previously untouched by the ravages of civilization are priceless. Most of us don’t see ourselves as marching through time leaving a path remarkable enough for historical note. But when we look back, 100 years, 200 years, it is the makeup of a place, collectively and individually, that makes them all special. Those that were “successful” and those that weren’t, their passage wrote history just the same.
Portrait of unknown group of gentlemen in late 1800s. They seem dressed for an evening on the town. This one is from Ironwood.
Unfortunately, many of the pictures come without identification. A minority of them are IDed and we can get solid information on the image subject. Most have a simple piece or clue as to their Who, What, When, Where. Many of the early pictures have advertising stamps for the photographer, which give the location of the studio. At least we know where the photo originated. Likely then, the subject in the picture was probably someone reasonably local. The style and type of picture can give us an approximate date. Clothing can be a clue as well.
The Mikel B. Classen Historical Pictures Collection allows access to its library of images to historical societies, historians, researchers and publications for means of historical research and development. Access for the public is done through the book series: Faces, Places, and Days Gone By. This series features the historical pictures collection with information on each image. Many of the pictures from the collection are featured throughout this website on our “Features” page as well as many of the blogs. I will continue to use them where applicable. At the moment, I am the only one who gets to regularly enjoy this nice collection which are currently residing on my shelves. It would be nice for others that are interested to be able to look at them and learn from them as well.
To this end I am diligently working on a second volume of Faces, Places, & Days Gone By. New on the website, as an off shoot of this page I am working on occasional galleries that will display some of the rare and unusual pictures in the collection. Watch for them and enjoy the historical pictures from our past.
Links to:
Historical Photo Gallery – Miscellaneous 01
Anyone wishing contact in regards to images from the Mikel B. Classen Historical Pictures Collection can do so by emailing to mikelclassen@mikelbclassen.com
