A Journey in Collections Management: The Creation of a Finding Aid for The Black Star Ephemera Collection At the Ryerson Image Centre by Lauren Nicole Potter, BA, Agnes Scott College, 2009 An applied thesis project presented to Ryerson University and George Eastman House in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the program of Photographic Preservation and Collections Management Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2013 ©Lauren Potter 2013 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize Ryerson University and George Eastman House to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I further authorize Ryerson University and George Eastman House to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. Lauren Potter ii A Journey in Collections Management: The Creation of a Finding Aid for The Black Star Ephemera Collection At The Ryerson Image Centre Master of Arts, 2013 Lauren N. Potter Photographic Preservation and Collections Management Ryerson University/George Eastman House Abstract This applied project involved the creation of a finding aid for the Black Star Ephemera Collection held at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) at Ryerson University in Toronto. This little known and un-catalogued collection was originally part of the Black Star Agency photographic collection founded in New York City in 1935. Black Star is a well known photo agency that has served as a resource for the picture press during the twentieth century, providing photographs of significant events, people, and places. This ephemeral collection is made up of all the textual material originally used by the agency to organize and support the photographic collection. In addition to the finding aid this paper discusses the significance of this collection and its relationship to the history of photojournalism as well as providing a summary of the rationale and methodology for the applied project. iii Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for their support, guidance, and advice throughout this project. The Ryerson Image Centre for allowing me to work with the Black Star Collection, through which this experience could not have been possible. To the RIC Staff - Jennifer Park, Charlene Heath, and Anna Jedrejowski for all of the appointments, card access, and encouragement needed to complete this project. Chantal Wilson, for her guidance for the creation and structure of this project. Peter Higdon and Valérie Matteau for the knowledge they imparted to me about Black Star. Robert Burley, my thesis advisor, for his time and guidance through the course of this project. My second reader, Thierry Gervais, for his knowledge on photojournalism and constant attention to detail. To Dee Psaila for her advice and knowledge of RAD and her time through reviewing this project. To my dad, G.R. Potter, without whose love, support and encouragement to pursue my dreams and see the world, this would not have been possible. To my friends and family across three continents for their continuous support, encouragement and prayers throughout this program. To my fellow classmates for making this experience what it was. Finally, I thank God, who is my strength. iv Table of Contents Author’s Declaration ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv List of Figures v List of Illustrations vi 1. Introduction 1 2. Literature Review and Research 4 2.1 History of Photojournalism 4 2.2 Research about Photojournalism 5 2.3 Management of a Collection and the Creation of a Finding Aid 7 3. Overview of Project 10 3.1 Photographic Finds 13 3.2 Creating the Finding Aid and Appendix 15 4. Conclusion 19 Appendix I: Black Star Ephemera Finding Aid 22 Appendix II: Black Star Ephemera Found Photograph List 104 Appendix III: Black Star Ephemera RAD Finding Aid 155 Bibliography 173 Figures Black Star Ephemera Finding Aid Chart 29 v Illustrations 1: Black Star Ephemera Collection in RIC vault 10 2: A look inside drawer 44 12 3: Example of envelope 12 4: Example of the labeling system at Black Star 12 5: Found Photographs in drawer 47 13 6: Silver gelatin print of actress Marisa Solinas 14 7: Silver gelatin copy print of Steve McQueen 14 8: Drawing of a German tank 14 9: View of miscellaneous ephemera box 17 10: Inside view of miscellaneous ephemera box 17 11: Arrangement of ephemera item 17 12: Illustrated Magazine article 26 13: Carbon copy article by ABC Press Services 26 14: Sipa Press article 26 15: Stern article 26 16: Paul Anka French caption 26 17: Lose caption 26 18: Letter addressed to Benjamin J. Chapnick from Eduardo Comesana 27 19: Example of filing copy 27 vi 1. Introduction In 2005, Ryerson University in Toronto was gifted the Black Star archive of approximately 292,000 black and white press prints.1 This generous gift included financial support that allowed the university to create the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), which officially opened in September of 2012. While the RIC staff has been able to complete a great deal of work related to researching and cataloguing this collection of twentieth century photojournalism, there is still several years worth of work ahead of them in making the collection accessible to an international research community. The Black Star Picture Agency continues today as a smaller company based in White Plains, New York providing content to clients seeking both historical and contemporary photojournalism. Black Star was founded by three Jewish-German immigrants; Kurt Safranski, Ernest Mayer, and Kurt Kornfeld, who arrived in New York City in December of 1935 after fleeing the Third Reich. They brought with them two suitcases of photographs that became the basis of the operation, along with their knowledge of picture magazines and photography. 2 The founders quickly established and nurtured relationships with all of the major magazines of the early twentieth century, such as, Life, Look, Time and the Saturday Evening Post . Under their direction as well as that of later director, Howard Chapnick, Black Star was built into a major photographic archive that held the work of numerous well-known photographers who captured the important events, places, and people of the twentieth century. In the early years of the twenty-first century, Black Star transformed itself to a digital company and sold most of its print holdings to an anonymous donor who then gifted the archive to Ryerson. The archive’s usefulness does not end at simply providing a visual history, but also aids in the understanding of twentieth century photojournalism, the internal operations of a picture agency and its relationships with magazines, photographers and the public. 1 “Research and Collections,” Ryerson Image Centre, accessed November 1, 2012, http://www.ryerson.ca/ric/research/collections.html. 2 For a more detail history of Black Star please see the Administrative history of the Finding Aid. 1 I was introduced to the idea of working with the ephemera collection in the fall of 2012, by the RIC staff. This part of the Black Star collection was unknown to me before meeting with staff members at the RIC, but I soon discovered it was a substantial collection made up of 10.5 meters of textual documents stored in eighty banker’s boxes, a portfolio, and one oversized box all located in the RIC vault. It was interesting to learn that this extensive collection of documents was originally stored with the photographs in the New York offices of Black Star and used by their staff as reference material relating to the photographs. I was intrigued to work with this collection, because it allowed me to combine my interests in history and photojournalism. In working with the collection, I found a wealth of knowledge not only about what physical objects it consists of – articles, captions, tear sheets, correspondences, research, maps, model releases – but also about how these provide a backdoor entrance into understanding the photographs. In the RIC publication, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection , Jennifer Allen 3 writes about her exploration of the ephemera collection in her essay, “Crate 17.” Crate 17 was the shipping container that held all of the ephemera when Black Star was gifted to Ryerson. Allen, who was commissioned by the RIC to write on Black Star, had been overwhelmed by the vastness of the photographic archives and was looking for explanations or a directory of some kind that would help her make sense of the collection.4 Allen found this in “Crate 17,” and writes: “Here are the thousands of missing words for the photographs.” 5 This thesis project continues Jennifer Allen’s quest of giving a voice to the photographs by looking at and discovering what is present in the ephemera. This process began in October of 2012 and continued through August of 2013 where I spent time surveying the collection as well as researching 3 Jennifer Allen is the editor of bilingual German-English magazine, frieze d/e (Berlin) that focuses on contemporary art and culture in Europe. 4 Jennifer Allen, “Crate 17” Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection . (Toronto, ON: Ryerson Image Centre, 2012); 109-116. 5 Ibid., 114. 2 photojournalism, Black Star, and collections management. There were several problems that needed to be solved, the primary one being the accessibility of the collection to researchers and the RIC staff. An unexpected surprise and challenge was presented by the three hundred photographs found in the collection that needed to be removed, re-housed and catalogued.