Emma Freeman glass plate negative of Humboldt Transit trolley.
History on Glass
What keeps work at the Historical Society exciting is that you never know what is going to walk in the door. What walked in recently was a woman with two heavy boxes of glass photographic negatives that a relative of hers had once found while cleaning out an old photo studio in Eureka. Now, she decided, it was time that they came to the Humboldt County Historical Society.
It turns out that these were mostly the work of Emma Freeman, a talented artist and photographer who lived here from 1906 to 1919. Some of the most iconic images we now have of our early history are thanks to Emma Freeman.
Bertha Thompson
This beautiful young woman is Bertha Thompson. She was of Yurok descent and a personal friend of Emma’s. It is #115 of the Freeman Klamath Series and comes from our Holt Collection. Bertha was the daughter of Lucy Thompson, author of “To The American Indian.” She led the opening parade for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.
Born in Nebraska in 1880, the rebellious farm girl yearned to be an artist and fled west, eventually to San Francisco. There she, and the husband she acquired along the way, started a small arts and novelty shop, and Emma studied painting. After their shop was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, the Freemans relocated to Eureka where they bought an old photographic studio, and Emma quickly learned the art of photography.
She was a woman in a largely male dominated profession, and her free-thinking Bohemian ways made quite a splash in conservative Humboldt. So did the marital scandal that made front page headlines and led to her divorce.
Sweet Pea Parade
This is the parade from the Sweet Pea Carnival, which was held in Eureka every August for a number of years. This photo was taken in 1917. Freeman Art Co. Postcard.
However, her talent and impact as a photographer could not be disputed. In 1917, she was designated Official Government Photographer for recording the wrecks of submarine H3 and USS Milwaukee off our coast. This gutsy woman greatly impressed the Navy men by boldly scrambling around those wrecks.
Milwaukee Wreck
In December 1916, the submarine H3 mistook the lights of the Hammond lumber mill for the light atop its minder ship entering the bay and ran aground. Excited locals flocked to that scene and far more showed up in January 1917 when the U.S. Naval Cruiser Milwaukee was also wrecked while trying to rescue the sub. Emma was the Official Government Photographer.
Rolph Shipyard
The Rolph Ship Company. Freeman Art Co. World War I era. Also spelled “Rolf.” In 1902, Samoa’s Bendixen shipyard was sold to San Francisco mayor, businessman and later, California Governor, James Rolf. The name of the workers’ town, Fairhaven, was for a while changed to “Rolf”. As World War I approached, the output of the yard turned to making wooden ships for the war effort and to replacing those civilian ships appropriated by the military. As the 20th century continued, wooden ships largely fell out of favor, and the Rolf yard closed in 1924.
Emma also photographed local street scenes, community events, ship building during WWI, and lush redwood scenes. But perhaps she is now best known for her idealized portraits of local Native Americans. Romantically posed outdoors or with painted studio backdrops, Emma presented an idealized image of “nature’s children” that became commercially popular.
“Nature’s Child”
Miss Redwood Empire 1927, Little Fawn of Klamath River. Little Fawn was a stereotypical “Indian Princess” of the 1920s, complete with flapper-inspired costume and hair.
In 1919, Emma Freeman relocated to San Francisco, though an assistant continued to run the Freeman Art Company here. She remarried, but the San Francisco studio was not a financial success. She died there at the age of 48.
Going Forward
The Historical Society is honored to have received such a large collection of Emma Freeman’s history-making and history-preserving work. We are now seeking donations and possibly grants so we can make prints from and digitize these fragile negatives and allow the public to see and appreciate Emma Freeman’s unique contribution to our history.
Archivist Pam Service with one box of Freeman glass negatives. Yes, that is indeed a toilet and bathtub in the background! The water was shut off in this bathroom years ago, and it now serves as our film and negatives room. We are using every conceivable inch of the Gross-Wells-Barnum house for storage!