ArtSEA: A peek into Seattle’s past via 60K newly digitized photos

To wit: People wore baggy shorts over long-johns, hulking desktop computers sat in the corners of living rooms, friends might’ve clutched cameras but never phones. 

I felt the same sense of anthropological curiosity upon watching ASAHEL: The Curtis Collection, a documentary created by my Cascade PBS colleagues and released last week. 

Asahel (pronounced AY-shel) Curtis was a prominent and prolific photographer in Seattle from the 1890s until he died in 1941. Less famous than his older brother Edward Curtis, who was renowned for his (now controversial) photo portraits of Indigenous people, Asahel instead focused his lens on candid images of everyday people and places. 

Using the cumbersome equipment of the time, he took a lot of photos: some 60,000, preserved as nitrate and glass-plate negatives at the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. WSHS is currently working to digitize each and every photo for the Asahel Curtis Collection, in an effort to make this incredible window onto Northwest history accessible to everyone.

About 26,000 of the Curtis images have been digitized so far (rabbit-hole alert: you can scroll through 53 pages of them). Most of the remainder have never been seen — making it a true treasure chest for the archivists involved, as well as for the rest of us looking online.

Among the shots: lumberjacks doing handstands on an enormous stump; a group of young sailors; Mt. Zion Baptist church elders in suits; hop pickers in Eastern Washington; cattle drives and horse hikes and hay balers; Chinese laborers socializing; women sorting cherries; Japanese flower farmers at Pike Place Market; kids at a YMCA; Chief Saluskin’s family in Yakima Valley. 

It’s a strikingly diverse sample of people living and working and playing in the Northwest over a 30-year period — and a reminder, as pointed out in the doc by historian Edward Echtle, that “Our history hasn’t always been diverse, but the people have always been diverse … The photos are just one more piece of evidence to support that,” he says. Local historian Ron Chew adds that the images are an opportunity to “reclaim what our true history is.”

While my own “vintage” photos of Seattle still exist as memories, Curtis’ images are of a Seattle well outside my personal experience (and that of most readers of this newsletter). “What were they eating? What were they wearing?” WSHS director Jennifer Kilmer says in the doc. “Each of those things you can see in a photograph tells you about their life.”

One example I zoomed in on: a 1905 shot of a group of people enjoying a pastime called “coasting,” which apparently involved sliding down a snowy mountain with only a thin walking stick as gear. The women on this steep slope of Mount Baker wear belted A-line skirts and tall boots, straw hats or bonnets and what look like swim goggles. Their purses slung cross-body, they look all too casual for where they are and what they’re doing. I want to know more! 

Another engaging part of the documentary: seeing local photographer Daniel Carrillo, who specializes in antique techniques, re-create one of Curtis’ photos of the Grand Coulee landscape with similar equipment. I hope you enjoy watching the doc and taking a ride in the time machine.

These days we’re being photographed pretty much all the time, so perhaps it helps to think of yourself as a testament to what people were like in Seattle during the 2020s. Who knows, maybe you’ll show up in some historic photo archive? Get on out there and show our future robot overlords how we spent summers.

The Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival is happening this weekend (July 13 - 14) at Volunteer Park. This superfun, thespian-forward event might be the best way to experience Shakespeare, with multiple plays, spinoffs and spoofs happening simultaneously on various stages. 

Georgetown Art Attack (July 13) features a whole lot of arts goodness, including a beautiful show of prints by legendary Seattle artist Fay Jones at studio e (opening reception July 13, 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.; through Aug. 10); and Trash Talking, an exhibit of mind-blowing shoes, guns and gas nozzles made from packaging waste by Seattle’s Mike Leavitt at Mini Mart City Park (opening July 13, 2 - 9 p.m.; through Aug. 18).

And! We are deep in the belly of music festival season. Here are a few reasons to dance outdoors:

< Day In Day Out festival at Seattle Center (July 12 - 14), including Carly Rae Jepson, The Bleachers, The Head and the Heart, and Sudan Archives among other bands, plus tons of DJ sets.

< West Seattle Summer Fest (July 12 - 14), including Girl Trouble, Chimurenga Renaissance, The Walking Papers, Sonny & the Sunsets and The Long Winters.

< NW Tune Up Fest in Bellingham (July 12 - 14), including Lupe Fiasco, Yonder Mountain String Band, the Moondoggies and Dengue Fever.

< Downtown Summer Sounds (all summer), which this Saturday (July 13, 4:30-6 p.m.) features the electrifying Ural Thomas and The Pain at Bell Street Park.

< Darrington Bluegrass Festival (July 19 - 21), including a whole lot of picking and grinning, such as Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands and Wayne Taylor & Appaloosa.

< Capitol Hill Block Party (July 19 - 21), including Remi Wolf, Chappell Roan, Girl Talk, The Beaches, Warren Dunes, Balcony Bridge and Linda from Work.

< Timber! Outdoor Music Festival in Carnation (July 25 - 27), including Deer Tick, Y La Bamba, Kimya Dawson, Black Ends, Your Heart Breaks and Adra Boo.