The Washington State Historical Society recently added 30 images to its online digital collection, as part of the Marvin Boland photography collection. Marvin Boland was a commercial photographer who worked in Tacoma from 1915 through the late 1930s. His collection provides a rich visual record of Tacoma, a city of vibrant economic, cultural and social activity during that time period.
Thirty images were added to the online digital collection last week, including a photo of Babe Ruth at the Stadium Bowl Field during his Tacoma visit in October 1924. The rest of the 500 digitized images will be added to the online collection over the course of the next year. In all, there are 57 Boland images currently accessible through the Society’s Web site. They can be viewed on http://digitum.washingtonhistory.org/boland.php .
The recent addition was made possible by a sponsorship from Memeria, Inc., a Seattle-based company specializing in digitizing non-digital assets for the purpose of preservation.
This is the first collection sponsorship agreement of its kind for the Historical Society.
The Society purchased the collection from the Boland estate in 1957. In all, there are more than 63,000 Boland images under the Society’s care, many in the form of nitrate negatives and prints. The Society is constantly working to preserve and present these images for future generations. This digitizing project and the recent completion of the Nitrate Negative Cold Room, especially designed to permanently store these delicate negatives, are part of that ongoing effort.
Boland captured scenes of a bustling Tacoma, photographing logging and milling activities, waterfront activities, various events and street scenes, among others. He was also the official photographer for Fort Lewis during World War I, documenting wartime shipbuilding and home front activities.