Al Parker Collection, 1850s-1926

University of Michigan William L. Clements Library

See More About This Repository

Address:

909 South University Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

clements-reference@umich.edu

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

How to Request

Ordering Reproductions

Download PDF Finding Aid

Restrictions:: The collection is open for research.

More ...

Summary

Creator:: Parker, Alfred, 1851-1929
Abstract:: The Al Parker collection includes three envelopes of photographs, sheet music, and newspaper clippings as well as a scrapbook relating to the professional and personal life of Philadelphia-based photographer and photographic supplies salesman Alfred Parker.
Extent:: 1 box containing 3 envelopes of photographs, sheet music, and clippings, and 1 scrapbook volume
Language:: English
Authors:: Collection processed and finding aid created by Les High and Jakob Dopp, February 2024

Background

Scope and Content:

The Al Parker collection includes three envelopes of photographs, sheet music, and newspaper clippings as well as a scrapbook relating to the professional and personal life of Philadelphia-based photographer and photographic supplies salesman Alfred Parker.

Envelope A (photographs): includes unmounted oval portraits of Parker’s children Eda and Ray from the early 1900s; studio portraits of Eda and his wife Alice from the 1910s, two of them from the Philadelphia studio of Gilbert and Bacon; an mounted school class photo (ca. 1890s?)

Envelope B (sheet music): includes three examples of World War I songs from the Eagle Publishing Company of Philadelphia with "music by Geo. L. Robertson and lyrics by Al. Parker."

Envelope C (letters, clippings, etc.): includes a letter appointing Dr. Ray Parker head of plastic surgery at a hospital in Johnstown, PA; a magazine article on “Flood Free Johnstown”; letters and clippings about Dr. Ray Parker; article on World War II factory workers; newspaper article on Theodore Roosevelt urging U.S. entry into World War I; and a note from Christmas 1926 from Parker’s grandson Donald addressed to “Ganco."

Scrapbook: The volume (37 x 28) is cloth-bound and has 66 pages total. Materials are not arranged in any chronological or thematic order and so unrelated items often appear together on the same page.

The album begins with photographs of Parker’s family members while the next few pages focus on scenes from his professional life, including a magazine cover from April 1900 and documentation of his break with Willis & Clements in 1910. Portraits of Parker at every stage of his life appear throughout the scrapbook, though not in any chronological order. The earliest is a tintype from the 1850s that shows him as a young boy with his brothers. Many portraits and casual snapshots of Parker's daughter Eda and son Ray from their early childhood into adulthood are included, while a collection of clippings reflects Parker’s pride in Ray's success as a doctor. His delight in playing the doting grandfather is clear from the drawings Parker made for Eda’s son Donald and in the notes that Donald wrote to Parker using the nickname “Ganco.”

A handful of portraits that were taken by Parker show that he was a capable studio photographer in addition to being a successful promoter of platinum photography products while working for Willis & Clements. Requests for his opinions from Eastman Kodak Company, Photo Era magazine, and the Photographers’ Association of New England testify to his recognized expertise. Numerous portraits of Parker in the company of other well-regarded photographers of the day confirm his acceptance in that professional circle.

Many ephemeral items also help illuminate the arc of Parker's career including programs from his minstrel show days; an advertisement for his Australian window blind company; the initial offer of employment from Willis and Clements; business cards from various stages of his career; and an ad for a new camera shutter he invented. Interspersed amongst these items are letters and photographs from various colleagues and employers along with miscellaneous poems, cartoons, programs, drawings, song lyrics, newspaper clippings, and so on.

Biographical / Historical:

Alfred “Al” Parker (1851-1929) rose to prominence as a representative of Willis & Clements, a Philadelphia-based firm that promoted the use of the Platinotype photographic process and sold a variety of platinum-based photographic papers. Documents in the scrapbook suggest that he was first offered a position at the firm by Alfred Clements in 1891 and that they parted ways in 1910 following a bitter dispute.

As the firm’s representative, Parker traveled the country conducting demonstrations and organizing salons to promote the use of platinum products, admired by professional photographers of the day for the wider range of tonal gradations that could be produced. Parker earned a national reputation for these activities and received requests from photo magazines and exhibit organizers soliciting his professional judgement or assistance. He also became friends with some of the most prominent photographers of the day, including J. C. Strauss, Pirie McDonald, and Ernest Walter Histed.

In 1909 Parker invented and patented a new type of camera shutter which he sold through Willis & Clements. The following year, Parker wrote on the bottom of a sales statement for the shutter that Alfred Clements was “a cheat and a foreflusher.” Soon after, Parker sold the patent to Clements for $1000 and apparently quit the firm. He remained, however, a prominent figure in the profession. Parker’s last employment appears to have been as a representative for Frank J. Curry, a major importer, manufacturer, and dealer of photo goods in Philadelphia.

Parker’s life before working for Willis and Clements was wild and varied. In the 1870s, he was part of a minstrel company, playing banjo and acting in stage shows. Parker continued to write poems and song lyrics his entire life, as evidenced in the scrapbook by copies of published sheet music, his own and others’ verse, and several rejection letters from magazines. From 1876 to 1880 he resided in Sydney, Australia, while operating a window blind company called Wormald & Parker; he also played a role in a ship-board variety show on the return journey to the United States.

In 1884 Parker married Alice Hallock (1866-1939) in New York. They had two children, Eda Marcia (1866-1939) and Ray Parker (1886-?). As indicated by the clippings and letters he saved, Parker took particular pride in Ray’s success in the relatively new medical field of plastic surgery. In his later years Parker mainly focused on his family, especially his grandson Donald Lincoln Kirk (1919-2004), who called him “Ganco.” Parker died on July 4, 1929.

Acquisition Information: