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- 13. [Snapshot Archive of North City Drug Store Clerk]
13. [Snapshot Archive of North City Drug Store Clerk]
13. [Snapshot Archive of North City Drug Store Clerk]
[Vernacular Photography] : [North St. Louis] : [St. Louis, Missouri]: [ca. 1940's]. About 195 snapshot photographs. Mostly black and white, a few color, drugstore prints with dimensions ranging from approximately 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" to 5" x 3 1/2." Generous verso notations in ink. A few prints with residue from a previous album mounting, otherwise all well preserved and about very good. Acquired by us a collection of loose prints and now tidily stored in archival clear album pages any mylar sleeves in a dust-proof binder.
An evocative archive of snapshot photography, nearly 200 prints by or of a Dorothy Matteson (1918-2007) in about the early 1940's. Prints are spread across a few North City locations seemingly all within a few blocks of Fairgrounds Park, including an apartment balcony overlooking Sportsman's Park, a house (likely at 3522 Sullivan Ave.), and workplace at Gasen's Drug Store.
Dorothy was married to a Robert Patteson (1912-2001) a City police who was away serving in World War II. Most of these appear to be photos taken to send to him and most are of Dorothy (including many provocative self-portraits). Her employment at a branch location of the Gasen's Drug Store chain is central to the archive, as a setting and advantageous place to develop film. A substantial number of the images depict Dorothy, her co-workers, and various neighborhood characters posed outside its doors at an unnamed street corner (though we suspect it was the location at West Florissant Rd. and Warne Ave.). Additional are dozens of views of product and window displays she seems to have been responsible for and proud of ; one verso notation notes her crediting herself (and exposes an anti-Semitism likely not uncommon for the time period):
“My Boss / I did the windows / can’t see much / he is not Jewish / thank goodness.”
This is an unusual and largely singular photographic grouping demonstrating one young woman’s vernacular perspective on her retail workplace and a North St. Louis neighborhood in its pre-white flight heyday as a dense and thriving urban center.
[Vernacular Photography] : [North St. Louis] : [St. Louis, Missouri]: [ca. 1940's]. About 195 snapshot photographs. Mostly black and white, a few color, drugstore prints with dimensions ranging from approximately 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" to 5" x 3 1/2." Generous verso notations in ink. A few prints with residue from a previous album mounting, otherwise all well preserved and about very good. Acquired by us a collection of loose prints and now tidily stored in archival clear album pages any mylar sleeves in a dust-proof binder.
An evocative archive of snapshot photography, nearly 200 prints by or of a Dorothy Matteson (1918-2007) in about the early 1940's. Prints are spread across a few North City locations seemingly all within a few blocks of Fairgrounds Park, including an apartment balcony overlooking Sportsman's Park, a house (likely at 3522 Sullivan Ave.), and workplace at Gasen's Drug Store.
Dorothy was married to a Robert Patteson (1912-2001) a City police who was away serving in World War II. Most of these appear to be photos taken to send to him and most are of Dorothy (including many provocative self-portraits). Her employment at a branch location of the Gasen's Drug Store chain is central to the archive, as a setting and advantageous place to develop film. A substantial number of the images depict Dorothy, her co-workers, and various neighborhood characters posed outside its doors at an unnamed street corner (though we suspect it was the location at West Florissant Rd. and Warne Ave.). Additional are dozens of views of product and window displays she seems to have been responsible for and proud of ; one verso notation notes her crediting herself (and exposes an anti-Semitism likely not uncommon for the time period):
“My Boss / I did the windows / can’t see much / he is not Jewish / thank goodness.”
This is an unusual and largely singular photographic grouping demonstrating one young woman’s vernacular perspective on her retail workplace and a North St. Louis neighborhood in its pre-white flight heyday as a dense and thriving urban center.