Otto Supe Sault Sainte Marie (Michigan) glass-plate negatives, 1894,1938, and undated
1.5 cubic feet (in 3 boxes)
The collection is organized by size first and then numerical order. There are 17 glass-plate negatives, each measuring approximately 8 inches by 10 inches, 24 glass-plate negatives, each measuring approximately 6.5 inches by 8.5 inches, and 35 glass-plate negatives, each measuring 5.5 inches x 7.5 inches.
The collection documents businesses (often two businesses are photographed on one plate), various steamers, the Soo Locks, notably Weitzel Lock, lock construction, school children, parades (6 images), of which one is a circus parade with elephants and camels, and a few miscellaneous topics, in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, 1894-1900s. Some of the images are dated with two dates, the later being 1938, when they were owned by Gordon Daun. Other images are undated, but they clearly date from the 1894-1900s period.
The descriptions of the negatives are from the original sleeves. Further notation, in square brackets, has been made by the Archivist when there was no original description, when the original description is insufficient to understand what the image is, or when negative is damaged. Abbreviations in the original descriptions are spelled out for ease of use by researchers.
Fifteen of the plates were badly crushed, broken into numerous pieces, or had emulsions that were severely damaged, in several cases peeling off so badly that it looked like a cat had shredded the image. Pat Thelen, Clarke digitizer, had a Herculean task to piece the images back together again and clean up as many problem spots as possible. The badly damaged negatives were withdrawn from the collection. The scanned copies are on a disc and printouts of the images are filed in the rear of Box 3 according to the size of the original plate, and then numerically. These printed images are the best images that could be created from the pitiful remains of the negatives.