VCU library launches online photo exhibit

By Marcia Meredith

RICHMOND, Va. – Two hundred 19th and 20th century photographs of African-Americans – unearthed from the Valentine Museum archives – can be found on a new online photo exhibit recently launched by Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. "Through the Lens of Time: Images of African-Americans from the Cook Collection" contains photos taken in Virginia and the Carolinas by father-and-son photographers George and Heustis Cook.

"We think these photographs are both stunning and artistic from a historical point of view," said Curtis Lyons, head of VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives. "Some of these images are truly depictive of African-American life at the turn-of-the-century, but there are some images that are quite obviously staged and stereotypical. The Cook collection is a remarkable juxtaposition of these stereotypes and how African-Americans truly lived."

Born in 1819, George Cook helped spread photography throughout the South. He would establish a studio, train several students and then sell the business to the pupil who showed the most potential. After settling in Charleston, S.C., Cook became one of the foremost Confederate Civil War photographers. In 1880, he settled in Richmond where his son Heustis followed in his footsteps and eventually took over the studio. In the 1950s, Heustis’ widow, Mary, sold the entire collection – including 10,000 images taken from the 1860s to the 1930s – to the Valentine Museum.

Melinda Gales, an assistant archivist at VCU, was instrumental in spearheading the exhibit while she was a VCU graduate student and Valentine Museum intern.

"At the time, I was doing my master’s thesis on African-American church architecture in Hanover County, and I was having problems finding images of baptisms and other church-related ceremonies," Gales said. That is when Teresa Roane, a supervisor of reference services at the Valentine Museum, led Gales to the Cook Collection Archives. Of the collection’s 10,000 glass-plate negatives, only 1,600 ever have been printed.

As VCU houses the Virginia Black History Archives, Gales thought that making images from the Cook collection available to the public would be an ideal complement. "I thought that since it helped my research, bringing these photos to light would be of use to other researchers, professors, teachers and students. This site has the potential to be a great tool and resource," Gales said.

After selecting images for the online exhibit, Gales digitally scanned 200 prints made from the glass-plate negatives and created a searchable database of information. Visitors can browse the online collection by choosing from 16 categories – including as sports, agriculture and the tobacco industry – or searching by keyword.

"The tradition of archives is that you have old items that sit around in musty rooms and doesn’t get as near as much use as it should. Because some of our items are so rare and fragile, even just the handling of it could be problematic. This online exhibit allows us to get the photographs out and let people see and use them," Lyons said.

The VCU Libraries’ new online exhibit is the second image database that has been launched. The first project, "Rarely Seen Richmond: Early 20th Century Richmond as Seen through Vintage Postcards," has been accessed more than 13,000 times.

The Cook Collection Web page is accessible at: http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/cook/.