In an earlier blog post I told the story of the glass lantern slides that Huron College Latin professor Louise French had made. These lantern slides are the blending of her loves of both travel and photography.
Friday, December 9, 2022
The Photography of Louise French - Album 4
Friday, December 2, 2022
The Photography of Louise French - Album 3 - Italy
In an earlier blog post I told the story of the glass lantern slides that Huron College Latin professor Louise French had made. These lantern slides are the blending of her loves of both travel and photography.
Friday, November 25, 2022
The Photography of Louise French - Album 2 - Unmounted photos from Rome
In an earlier blog post I told the story of the glass lantern slides that Huron College Latin professor Louise French had made. These lantern slides are the blending of her loves of both travel and photography.
Friday, November 18, 2022
The Photography of Louise French - Album 1
In an earlier blog post I told the story of the glass lantern slides that Huron College Latin professor Louise French had made. These lantern slides are the blending of her loves of both travel and photography.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Historical Lantern Slides from Huron College
Voorhees Hall |
The heart of Huron College, Voorhees Hall, along with other college buildings had their contents auctioned off and were demolished. I loved that building; you could feel the 103 years of history as you walked through it. I always regretted that I was not there for the auction, just to get a small piece of it. I missed it. But my dad didn't.
Recently, he offered me a large collection of glass slides he had purchased at the auction – about 300 of them stored in plastic shoeboxes, with about 70 more in other small boxes. I happily took them, and quickly discovered they were “Lantern slides” - positive photographic images put onto a piece of glass and covered by a second piece of glass, bound on all sides with black paper tape. Inside the boxes with the slides were some other items – many pictures of classic art that had been cut out and mounted on pieces of cardboard, some small boxes and an old envelope that had been used as scratch paper. All in all, these were reminiscent of materials that might have been used by a teacher. There were a couple of clues as to who these items belonged to and how old they might be – the back of one of the cardboard mountings had some writing referring to an insurance check from 1932, and the envelope had “Louise French, 510 Nebraska SW” written on it. A quick check of the 1930 census showed Louise French as a roomer at this address, along with her occupation of teacher at the college. Bingo!Another item I received from my dad was a small cabinet with drawers like a card catalog. As I was cleaning it up, I noticed most of the drawers were labeled:
I suspect these slides were owned and donated by Miss French to Huron College after her retirement. Some of the glass slides apparently had been ordered from commercial companies (see catalogs at left). I suspect that Miss French also made some of these lantern slides herself. Two of the small cardboard boxes among the slides are labeled, “Thin Cover Glass for Lantern Slides” and "Eastman Lantern Slide Plates," both ordered from Eastman Kodak company. For whatever reason, some of her lantern slides were never mounted, and the boxes are labeled as such.
In 1909 she was one of the winners of a contest put on by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader; the prize was a trip to Colorado, which would be her second trip to the state. She would make a third trip to the area in 1929. There she took numerous photos that ended up as lantern slides.
She took a 3 month trip overseas visiting Holland, Austria, Germany, Belgium Switzerland, Italy, France, the British Isles, and Greece. She departed at the port of New York aboard the S.S. La France on June 29, 1922. Lantern slides labeled Italy, 1922 are among her collection. She was able to make two overseas trips in her years at Huron College.