Categories
Uncategorized

Balancing the Books for John Moran, Art Photographer

John Moran, photographer. "Nos. 114 & 116 N. Water St., 1868," (PhillyHistory.org/Free Library of Philadelphia)
John Moran, photographer. “Nos. 114 & 116 N. Water St., 1868,” (PhillyHistory.org/Free Library of Philadelphia)

Despite John Moran’s best efforts, Mary Panzer told us, his “photographs were never considered art. His audience believed that art was historical and made by hand, whereas photography was scientific and made by machines. In 1903, the year Moran died, Alfred Steiglitz won the battle to establish photography as a fine art, but by that time, Moran’s work was long forgotten, shelved as topography by the same audience who believed Moby Dick was a book about whales.”

What did they say about Moran, the photographer in a family of painters? His brief New York Times obituary confirmed Moran’s role as “one of the pioneer photographers of this country” but instead of crediting him with American art photography, it noted his role as chief photographer in “the work of the Coast Survey” and his having “made the first pictures of the original route of the Panama Canal” in 1871. It mentioned his participation in the federal expedition to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. And it mentioned his abandonment of photography and his turn, late in life, to landscape painting.

In 1865, when Alfred Steiglitz was in still in diapers, Moran had connected the ideas of photography and art. In February of that year, he addressed the Philadelphia Photographic Society on “The Relation of Photography to the Fine Arts,” declaring that photography “speaks the same language, and addresses the same sentiments.” Moran noted the need for the photographer’s “perceiving mind to note and feel the relative degrees of importance in the various aspects which nature presents.” Without that, “nothing worthy of the name of pictures can be produced.”

Moran had collected his small landscapes made in and around Philadelphia in the early 1860s and became known as “a young Nature artist.” In fact, he would make aesthetic choices with everything he touched. During the Civil War, Moran’s photographs of the Mower General Hospital were more than a record, they were expressive, lush and rich. By the end of the decade, images he and brother Thomas made in the Wissahickon Valley helped inspire the city of Philadelphia to add it to the expanding Fairmount Park.

In the late 1860s, Moran put his ideas of to work on the streets of historic Philadelphia. He searched for scenes that re-framed the past as an aesthetic, not merely as anecdote. At a time of great growth, massive industrialization and diminishing history, Moran relished the textures and sensibilities of the city’s oldest streets and alleys. Between 1867 and 1870, he and his 6-by-9-inch wet-plate camera and wooden tripod were picture-making fixtures. Again and again, Moran blocked out the modern and focused in on the past, offering it renewed life. The results were compelling. Moran mounted 78 of his prints in an album entitled A Collection of Photographic Views in Philadelphia & its Vicinity and sold it to the Library Company of Philadelphia. Their accession book confirms the purchase from “John Moran, artist.”

John Moran, photographer, "Water St. below Vine, 1868" (PhillyHistory.org/Free Library of Philadelphia)
John Moran, photographer, “Water St. below Vine, 1868” (PhillyHistory.org/Free Library of Philadelphia)

There’s a goodly stash of Moran prints from this series at the Free Library Print Department and at PhillyHistory.org. The two gems illustrated here are only a tip of the iceberg. In one small part of town now-long obliterated by I-95 Moran photographed Queen Street, Swanson Street at Christian and the “Ship Joiner” shop at 757 Swanson.

In all, Moran probably made as many as 100 views of the city in the late 1860s. But that was it. He would soon be drawn into the life of an expedition photographer for the federal government. By the time he returned to Philadelphia, Moran’s ideas about art had been tested and his confidence was even more firm. In June and again in October of 1875, Moran shared with his colleagues at the Photographic Society his “Thoughts on Art Nature and Photography” and his “Reflections on Art.”

The photographer has “the power to see the beautiful,” declared Moran (his remarks appeared in The Philadelphia Photographer) but “good work cannot be produced unless the workman has the instincts, feelings and education akin to those of the artist.” The best photographs are “quickened to life by their own spirit and intelligence…speaking the universal language of art.” As “a realistic art” photography “is a translator…and we, the translators, ought to look to it that we take noble themes, not false and artificial subjects…” Moran observed: “art in all its forms if the form of thought, and the photographic work that rises to this plane, is the expression of the photographer.”

So, how is Moran’s “discovery” of expression in photography accounted for today? One measure, of course, is the art marketplace. A few years ago, Christie’s auction house sold a Moran of the Bank of Pennsylvania. Never mind that the cataloger misidentified the scene as construction (it’s a demolition). The sale, $32,000, broke the record for a Moran.

How does this compare with Stieglitz? At recent Christie’s sales, six Stieglitz prints fetched more than $200,000 each. The priciest of these, was a view from the back window of the 291 gallery, the place where Stieglitz successfully promoted photography as art. That print brought $363,750, more than ten times what Moran’s did, but hardly a record. “Top Stieglitz photographs have sold for more than $1 million,” shrugged The Wall Street Journal.

Looks like it’ll be a while before the books of photographic history get balanced properly.

Categories
Neighborhoods Snapshots of History

Philadelphia’s Sears Tower

When Americans are asked about the Sears Tower, they normally call to mind the recently renamed Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois. However, if asked about a Sears Tower when in Philadelphia, you’re likely to get a different answer. In Northeast Philadelphia, where Adams Avenue meets Roosevelt Boulevard, the 14-story Sears clock tower stood for over 70 years.

Sears visible from Roosevelt Boulevard.
Sears visible from Roosevelt Boulevard.
Side of Sears building
Side of Sears building with the bottom section of tower visible.

In the 1900s, the Sears, Roebuck & Co. was still growing rapidly in the United States. With the company’s need to expand eastward from Chicago, Philadelphia was highlighted as a possible location for one of their mail-order houses and plants. With the city’s important railroad access, the Northeast Philadelphia section, along Roosevelt Boulevard was chosen as a location.

From 1919 to 1920, Sears, Roebuck & Co. constructed a large complex that consisted of a large 9-story building that included a 14-story clock tower. The neo-Gothic brick building was designed by George C. Nimmons, a Chicago-area architect who had worked for Sears, Roebuck & Co. previously, even designing the company president’s home.

The building opened October 18, 1920 even though parts of it were still unfinished. This was just one of the companies allowing the Northeast section of Philadelphia to grow. However, even with the success of the Roosevelt Boulevard building, the overall decline of mail-order shopping prompted the company to open up a nearby retail store there just a few years later, in 1925. It wouldn’t be the company’s only expansion as Sears would also add on an administration building and a power plant. They even paid for a miniature of their building, with its famous clock tower, to be constructed as a firehouse on a nearby block.

Engine Company Number 70 on 4800 Langdon Street.
Engine Company Number 70 on 4800 Langdon Street.

Through most of the 20th century, the Sears complex was a popular and well-known landmark in Northeast Philadelphia, It employed thousands of workers from the surrounding neighborhoods. In the 1960s, the area, still a popular hub, even had a subway station constructed. Although it was meant to be connected to the Broad Street Line, the plan never went through. Unfortunately, in the 1980s and 1990s, sales decreased and the building with its iconic tower was sold in 1993.

On October 31, 1994, the Sears Tower was imploded. It barely took 7 seconds for the building to go down, as seen in the 6ABC news broadcast from that day. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-nvu4SlD54?rel=0]

 

With a 14-story tower and over 25 million square feet, the implosion was set to be the largest of its time.  Hundreds of Philadelphia residents came to watch as over 70 years of history was brought down in 7 seconds.

Today, the area is home to a shopping center full of different chain stores. However, it is also still home to the Sears power plant, which was visible in the above video and not imploded. Currently, the power plant building is not being utilized other than Home Depot advertising its logo on the smokestack. The power plant and the aforementioned firehouse are the only Sears buildings remaining in the area.

 

Miller, Bill. (1988, May 15). The Sears Tower. The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Sitton, Lea. 1994, October 24. An Explosive Finale For Giant Sears A Landmark Will Go As It Came: In Record-setting Fashion. The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Phila PA Chronicles – Keeping Time By Sears Clocktower