All the Rage: Cycling Photography and Stereoscopic Cameras

Cameras owned by Darius Kinsey have been added to Big Cameras, Big Trees. While researching cameras in our collection recently, I discovered that we hold two that were previously owned by Darius Kinsey.  These two cameras, each of which is amazing in its own right, are now installed in Old City Hall. The first is a stereoscopic camera (#1978.84.2) and is actually pictured with Kinsey in one of the murals. The stereoscopic cameras took two images simultaneously from slightly different angles to create 3D images when viewed through a stereoscope. The taking and viewing of stereoscopic images was all the rage in the latter half of the 19th century.

Darius Kinsey American, 1869–1945 Crossing a glacier near Monte Cristo, 1902 Black-and-white stereograph Whatcom Museum, 1978.84.6417

Darius Kinsey
American, 1869–1945
Crossing a glacier near Monte Cristo, 1902
Black-and-white stereograph
Whatcom Museum, 1978.84.6417

Advertisement for the Cycle Poco camera, 1899 Rochester Camera & Supply Company

Advertisement for the Cycle Poco camera, 1899
Rochester Camera & Supply Company

The second is a camera that was specifically designed to be transported and used on a bicycle called a Cycle Poco (#1978.84.4) – combining the two predominate leisure activities of the time, cycling and photography.

These cameras are also beautiful pieces of craftsmanship with then state-of-the-art optical components, mahogany interiors, brass fixtures, Russian red leather bellows and small ivory details.

John Edson, His Birds, and His Museum

At the end of the 19th century, the art of taxidermy was a fad. Mounted birds and other animals were used as home decor and most naturalists, amateur and pro­fessional alike, collected and mounted specimens. As such, the Whatcom Museum’s Edson-Edson-Booth Bird Col­lection of over 600 mounted birds is an important cultural and historical artifact. But it is much more than that.

It is also an irreplaceable educational and scientific treasure, a testament to early Whatcom County ornithology and the impetus for the very existence of our outstanding com­munity museum.

The man responsible for the majority of the collection is John Milton Edson who personally collected them over more than fifty years starting in the early 1890s. Another Edson, Edward, not related to John, was a long-time mayor of Lynden where he operated a drug store on Front Street which housed his collection of sixteen mounted owls. Ed­ward Edson donated his collection to John Edson on his death in 1944. Though John Edson reportedly spent his later years doing research on and writing about taxidermy most of the two Edsons’ birds were mounted by Belling­ham taxidermist Edward Booth. Booth’s personal collec­tion was donated to the museum when he died in 1959, completing the Edson-Edson-Booth Bird Collection. Read more

Old City Hall maritime exhibit

How Your Museum Protects the Collections

Thirty thousand objects.  170,000 photographs.  16,000 archival items. These numbers make up the Whatcom Museum Collection and Curator of Collections, Becky Hutchins, is in charge of protecting each piece from harm. Threats are as small as the powderpost beetle and as large as a fire or flood.

For the smallest variety of threat, Hutchins employs an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach as an environmentally friendly way to monitor and regulate the bug factor throughout Museum facilities.

Using sticky traps, we can determine if our collections are in danger. Caught specimens are examined, and, depending on their numbers and where they are in their lifecycle (larvae or adult), we can determine how hospitable our environment is to them and what their food sources might be. By changing the temperature and maintaining moisture levels, monitoring our collections and keeping the museum spaces well maintained, we’re able to create an unfriendly environment for pests, and protect treasures like historic maps of Bellingham Bay and 100-year old women’s finery.

But who are these unwanted visitors? Turns out museum collections are at greatest risk from a few common insects, Hutchins explains, because these pests have favorite food sources as well as preferred habitats that are often found in our collections and storage spaces. Read more