Posted on

The Jeep Administration Building Implosion

April 14, 1979

Jeep officials said the building was too expensive to keep, that they needed the parking spaces.  It was 64 years old, built in 1914, and had been vacant for five years. The demolition was announced less than 60 days before the implosion date.

We were all so disappointed. To think what a beautiful, distinctive, classic and uniquely famous building was being torn down for a parking lot.

As the Jeep Administration Building in Toledo, Ohio was being made ready to blow up, the classic, 63 year old Waldorf Hotel on Summit Street and Madison Avenue was being torn down, to make way for a bank.

Tommy was a punk rock drummer in a Detroit band. And quite a great drummer, at that. He seemed like the perfect metaphor of the pending doom – he was like the dynamite that was going to blow up the building. Out with the old, in with the new, rock and roll style. I thought punk was the perfect answer to disco.

I asked him to pose for me as the dark force in the building during the weeks leading up to the implosion. We managed to somehow get on the roof of the building, where Tommy stood on a ladder over West Toledo.

0

One day nearly two years after this shoot, Tom said to me, I’m moving to New York, do you want to come? Of course I said yes. We’ve been together ever since. Tommy (his drummer name, his real name is Tom), the proverbial dynamite of the Jeep Administration Building implosion, turned out to be the spark that changed my life.

We actually moved to New York on April 13, staying at a New Jersey hotel that night before we drove over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan and down Broadway on the morning of April 14, 1981, exactly two years after the implosion Jeep Administration Building. It didn’t even cross our minds at the time. We were, after all, two nonchalant punk brats. In fact, not until right now have I ever realized what a fortuitous day that was for us.

Is life the car or the road?

There’s a car involved (a Jeep) there’s a road involved (40 years so far), and there’s some dynamite, in the form of a couple of beating hearts (or is it music?) …. today is much more than just the 40th anniversary of the Jeep Administration Building implosion.

But we are still sorry to see it go.

Posted on

Pierre and the Lafayette Guard

First photo I ever saw of Pierre Gentieu. He was wearing the Lafayette Guard uniform, and I saw it right after I rented my Lafayette St. studio in January 1992, which was right after I found out that he was a photographer.
Soldiers representing five generations, Penny Gentieu Photography Studio on Lafayette St., New York City. A lot happened in the photo biz during the years I had this studio. I bought these toy soldiers in New Orleans in 1999 to put on display. Sometimes they fell down from the vibration of the Six train that went through the basement of the Lafayette Street building, but never Pierre, and never the bullet.
380 Lafayette St., New York, New York, Spring 2000.  My studio building was under renovation.
The Marquis de Lafayette monument. Prospect Park entrance at 9th Street, Brooklyn, New York, just five blocks down the street from our 78 Prospect Park West apartment, 2006.
Posted on

My grandmother, Helen Moyer Pinkerton

In 1997 I was invited to write about and submit a photograph of my grandmother for the book, Our Grandmothers, which was an anthology of the grandmother photos and memoirs by 74 granddaughters who are photographers. Amazingly, my photo was chosen by jury for the cover, and the jury included such heavyweights as Kathy Ryan, Photo Editor of the New York Times Magazine; Michelle Stevenson, Photo Editor of Time; and Michele McNally, Photo Editor of Fortune.

I was in great company, some of the other photographers were Sylvia Plachy of the Village Voice, Margaretta Mitchell, author of Recollections: Ten Women of Photography (1979) and long time ASMP leader; Helen Marcus, President of ASMP at the time I joined and she sponsored me; Deborah Willis, photographer, author, curator and scholar; and Annie Leibovitz, who is so cool, she didn’t even have to write anything.

22 years ago, I wrote down my impressions of my grandmother and her amazing house that was full of stuff, but now I can see her legacy, through my mother, to my daughter.  I marvel at my new discoveries of my sweet, strong Mennonite-rooted grandmother.

Helen Moyer Pinkerton was descended from Mennonites in Germany who were persecuted and fled to Switzerland, finally settling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1742. Her father, Joseph W. Moyer, the fifth generation of the American Moyer lineage, moved to Washington DC, where he worked in real estate. Her mother was also from a fifth generation American Mennonite family, originally from Palatinate. My grandmother comes from a 100% Mennonite background, the first generation born of a family that broke away from their Mennonite community. Wow, I just realized that.

Audrey and Helen Moyer, sisters, standing next to their grandmother, Catherine Hepler Freed in Lansdale, Pennsylvania ca. 1903

Helen was worldly, born in Washington, DC in 1892. She had two sisters. They had an older brother who was accidentally shot in a hunting accident at the age of 14 on the banks of the Potomac.

Helen graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York with a degree in fashion design some time before 1918, when she met Sherwood Mortley Pinkerton Jr., who was in the Army, passing through Washington DC. “When I saw her in 1918, my inner voice said, she’s the one,” my grandfather would tell us. They were married on June 10, 1919, in Washington, DC.

They settled down in Toledo, Ohio, where Sherwood took his place in the family business founded by his grandfather, John W. – the Pinkerton Tobacco Company. The company began in Zanesville and moved to Toledo in 1909, having built a factory right on Swayne Field, behind the ballpark that opened that same year.

Helen gave up a fashion design career in New York, but she made up for it in her four creative daughters.

My mother, Audrey Moyer Pinkerton, was the second born, in 1922, and a child prodigy. She painted her entire life. This newspaper article even mentions that she had had continuous lessons with Karl Kappes starting at age nine! And there she is in the photo, painting a large canvas, no doubt carrying out a Karl Kappes painting assignment to copy a Thomas Gainsborough, or something.

In 1953, probably when my mother was pregnant with me, she painted a portrait of her aunt and namesake, Audrey (which I was named as well.) The painting was an amalgamation of two photos – source material that I recently recognized – a photograph of my grandmother, ca. 1918, and a photograph of the two sisters, whereas my mother used the body of her mother in the first photo and the face of Audrey in the second photo, to create a romantic portrait of her mother’s beloved late sister, a flapper who was married to the “Jazz Minister.”  My mother gave the painting to her mother, whereupon it hung in their Westmoreland dining room, across from the Anna Hale Buckingham ancestor painting.

Thanksgiving, 1961 at the Pinkertons. Paintings on the wall are of Sherwood’s great grandparents, Alvah Buckingham and Anna Hale Buckingham.
Painting of Audrey hanging on the dining room wall opposite the ancestor painting of Anna Hale Buckingham. December 1958. My sister, my two cousins, and me.

Then the painting hung in our Brooklyn apartment when our daughter, Anna was growing up. Anna was 21 when she used it in a photo series of self-portraits satirizing the Ten Commandments. One of Anna’s special talents is in her styling, and she has always loved fashion. Dressed in clothing reminiscent of a Dutch painting (Mennonites originated in Holland in the 16th Century, but that’s totally irrelevant), she held under her arm the painting of Audrey by Audrey for her rendition of “Do Not Steal.”

Anna won a prize for this photo in the Toledo Museum of Art’s annual 94th Toledo Area Artists’ Exhibition, in 2013. The photo was featured in The Blade and it inspired a solo show at the Paula Brown Gallery in Toledo. Anna sold editioned prints of the photo, and other photos, as well the entire set of 10 Commandments photographs. It was right after college, and she earned enough money to lease a pre-war apartment in New York.

The 10 Commandments series was published as the 10th Matte Magazine. The Museum of Modern Art’s periodicals curator bought it for the museum’s collection of millennium magazines.  The series was also published online in 10 countries and in the Korean print magazine, Blink. The 10 Commandments were exhibited in Anna’s first New York solo show, in 2016.

I used the painting in 2009 for the logo of artistsoftoledo.com, which I created to honor my mother, who died that year. The painting in the logo represents the beginnings of the Toledo Museum of Art, when George W. Stevens placed a painting on the floor in front of a “filtched” chair to sit down rich folks and espouse the virtues of building of a museum to hang the painting, enticing them to donate money to build the museum.  But I have digressed…

Now, back to my grandmother:

My grandmother talked on the phone with my mother for hours a day. This was her phone booth, in the hallway by the staircase of their house, around the corner from the kitchen.
My grandparents in their living room at Christmas. To the left is the painting made by my mother at age 14, which you can see her actually painting in the above newspaper clipping from 1937. On the right are 11 cases of my grandfather’s Kodachromes, that were fortunately given to me when they moved out of their house in 1977, and from which this very picture originated – maybe from that middle box on the left.
My grandmother posing with Agda, her Swedish maid. The two appear to have a very strong bond between them, as they both look so intentionally defiant in the photo, and my grandmother is holding her sash.
My grandmother posing in their garden in a dress that she made. In fact, she probably made all of her clothes. She was 100% Mennonite, new-agey, sophisticated and educated with a fine art degree in clothing design.
With my grandfather, who was an avid photographer and gardener in his retirement.
Looks like Christmas 1957, one year before the painting on the left was replaced by the painting of Audrey. My dad is sitting on the left, my brother on the right, and I am sitting in my mother’s lap playing the accordion.
The Pinkerton home on the corner of Richmond Rd and Woodruff in the Westmoreland neighborhood of Toledo, a Georgian Colonial Revival house that my grandparents built in 1927 and lived in for fifty years. My grandmother died in 1978 at age 86 on Thanksgiving, and my grandfather followed her on January 1, 1980, also at age 86.  (My mother too was 86 when she died, in 2009.)  When we moved back to Toledo in December of 2008, there happened to be a Westmoreland house tour, and their house was featured. My brother and sister and I got to see the inside of the house again, but there was a big something missing. It seemed so small, without them in it.
Posted on

Auguste Pondarre and Pierre

French photographer, Auguste Pondarre, and my great great grandfather, Pierre Gentieu, who emigrated from France in 1860, are two photographers whose work was not recognized until long after they died, but whose contributions to history, both worldly, and on a very personal level, are invaluable.

Auguste Pondarre (1871-1962) is Pierre’s nephew, the son of his sister, Marie. He lived in Orthez, Basses Pyrenees, France. He served in the French military from 1892 to 1895. He married Sarah Bessouat, a milliner, in 1905. They had a daughter, Simone, born in 1907. I met Simone in 1994.

After his service, Auguste worked with his father, Germain at his paint, art and frame shop on Rue de l’Horloge.

From 1901 to 1905, before he was married, Auguste made photographs of Orthez that were published as postcards under the name of his father’s shop, G. Pondarre & Fils.

Today, Auguste Pondarre is known for being the first photographer to create a photographic body of work that documents Orthez.

Could it be that his uncle, Pierre Gentieu, who had been creating photographs of the Brandywine Valley in America since 1880, inspired and influenced Auguste to make photographs? For that matter, who introduced Pierre to photography, was it someone in Orthez before he left for America?

I have some clues.

Pierre visited Orthez in August and September, 1898. He took his camera with him and made, at least, these three photos, that have survived.

Germain Pondarre, Pierre Gentieu, Auguste Pondarre; Gentieu-Baillan chocolate shop with sisters Marie Pondarre and Rachel Gentieu; the ancient Orthez bridge, which Pierre printed again in the late 1920's, writing a note on the back about the restored tower and that he took the photo in 1898.

The book, Duex Photographs Ortheziens du Debut di Siecle

I found a book that Simone sent to me in 1998, Duex Photographs Ortheziens du Debut di Siecle (Two Orthezien Photographers at the Start of the Century) by Jean Teitgen, about the first two photographers of Orthez that left a body of work, Auguste being the first, and their postcards.

In the book is this photo of the bridge by Auguste Pondarre:

Auguste’s photo of the bridge is nearly identical to Pierre’s photo, taken from the same spot, close to the same time, but perhaps years apart, because of the evidence of grown ivy on the rocks to the right. The lens was the same focal length and it was captured on the same size quarter plate, 4×5 glass negative.

Some Pondarre postcards received by Pierre, dated 1901 to 1905

Auguste Pondarre's important early photos of Orthez first received recognition in the 1980's with an exhibition of his postcards.

Some Gentieu photographs of the Brandywine Valley, a body of work that Pierre began in 1880 and worked on for nearly 40 years:

Pierre Gentieu's documentary photographs of the DuPont Powder Company and the lifestyle of the workers of the Brandywine Valley received recognition in the 1970's, when his collection became invaluable for the creation of the Hagley living history museum in Delaware.

Their cameras

Pierre’s camera is on the left. Auguste’s camera is on the right, which I photographed at Simone’s house. Pierre’s camera can expose a glass negative as large as 8×10. Auguste’s camera appears to be 6.5×8.5, but both cameras accommodate half and quarter glass plate negative sizes.

The equipment Pierre used and would bring with him to Orthez in the summer of 1898:

According to the biographical details in the French book about Auguste’s life, Germain and Marie were living in Bayonne, where Auguste was born. Toward the end of the nineteeth century, the family moved to Orthez to live at the old Gentieu homestead with Marie’s sister, Rachel. Perhaps it was around 1891, when the mother, Anne Celeste Gentieu-Baillan died, who had been living there with Rachel.  The Pondarres remained at the old Gentieu home until 1911, when they bought a building and moved up the street. Auguste served in the military from 1892 to 1895, returning to Orthez at age 24, and going to work as a house painter in his father’s business.

Pierre visited Orthez in 1898, presumably staying with his two sisters, Marie and Rachel, along with Germain and Auguste. Pierre brought along his camera and processing equipment. Could it be that Pierre’s photography interested Auguste? Perhaps Auguste was with him when he photographed the bridge and other scenes.

This postcard shows the backyard of 54 rue Moncade, the address of the ancient Gentieu homestead, and surrounding houses, with the castle ruins Tour Moncade across the street from these buildings. It is Auguste’s card number 2, printed in 1901.

If Pierre influenced Auguste, who influenced Pierre?

It is ironic that a hint comes from a detail about the second photographer subject of the book, Duex Photographs Ortheziens du Debut di Siecle. Joseph Barbe was five years younger than Auguste. At age 20, he opened a portrait studio in Orthez in 1896. In 1903, perhaps at the suggestion of Auguste, Joseph Barbe moved his studio next to the Pondarre art shop on Rue de l’Horloge, and started producing images for postcards, as a complement to his portrait business. Auguste stopped publishing postcards in 1905.  The author of the French book asks the question, where did Joseph Barbe get his inspiration to be a photographer? The suggestion is that it was through Andre Laffitte-Forsans, one of the first persons to own a camera in Orthez.

Laffitte was Pierre Gentieu’s great grandmother’s maiden name

Genealogical documents showing Pierre’s connection to the Laffitte family. The first document is Pierre’s parent’s marriage contract dated 1838. Note that Pierre’s father’s mother’s name is Marie Lacazerette. The second document is Marie Lacazerette’s mother’s will dated 1824, where she signs her maiden name, Laffitte.

Perhaps the same Laffitte who owned one of the first cameras in Orthez was Pierre’s cousin, who could have inspired Pierre with an interest in photography.

The pre-1860 photograph of the bridge

Which could explain this postcard, published by Barbe nearly 50 years later of the ancient bridge photographed before 1860, the year that Pierre went to New York.  Simone had a mural of the exact photograph in an alcove of a room in her house.  She told me it was taken by my ancestor.   Pierre, I understood her to mean.

This is why I believe that Pierre’s photo experience began in Orthez, and that he brought his love for photography with him to America from France, and back again.

Posted on

Pierre Gentieu, Orthez, Basses-Pyrénées, France

Story of a young French immigrant who came to America in 1860, what war meant to him, and the importance of his French heritage as he fathered a new American family.

Pierre Gentieu in 1860, 18 years old

Pierre writes:

I was at the time working at the bookbinder trade in the City of Pau, and my home was in Orthez, about 40 Kilometers from there…

Napoleon 3rd. at that time issued a proclamation that all young men under age who were willing to fight for the liberty of Italy could enlist; and whatever time they would serve in that war would be deducted from their own term which they would have to serve at conscription time when of age; but all such must have the consent of father and mother, as minors, before being accepted. The excitement among the young fellows was great, and all wanted to go and fight for the liberty of Italy.

I had to write home to get the consent in due form, and telling them that all my shopmates were enlisting — would they please sign the papers at once so that we could all be in the same company. What was my surprise and disappointment when the next day I received the news that father’s and mother’s conscience did not allow them to give their consent to such enlisting. That if it had been to defend France, well and good; every Frenchman’s duty was to do so; but to go to a foreign country and maybe lose a leg or an arm in the undertaking, they would always feel sorry that they had allowed it, and consequently, I would have to wait till the regular time before going in the army. (Incidentally I would mention that two cousins were killed in that war; one at Magenta and the other at Solferino.)

Young and foolish I took offense, and told them I would then travel on my trade, what was called the tour of the country from shop to shop to perfect yourself in the trade, which was allowed by law; and as they could not keep me out of that and being afraid that I would not learn anything good on such a trip they wrote to my uncle in Brooklyn about if for advice, as I wanted to travel away from home; so Uncle answered at once saying that the best thing for them to do was to send me over while I was under age and not subject to conscription yet and could then escape the regular service when I would come of age; and being well pleased with the prospect of going to America, I was willing to accept the challenge.

Pierre’s father, Bernard Auguste Gentieu-Baillan

On the Fourth of March, 1860 I left home, father was coming to Bordeaux to see me off on a sailing vessel. He was sad all the way, I remember, and the last words he said to me on leaving I have never forgotten. Pierre, said he, you are going very far and we may never see each other again in this world, but surely live a Christian life, so that at last we may all meet together in heaven.

Pierre's aunt and uncle, the Darrigrands, and their French bakery on Dean Street in Brooklyn, where Pierre first lived in America.

He stayed with the Darrigrands in Brooklyn, N.Y. until the severity of the winter drove him South to New Orleans, La. in search of a warmer climate. He was in La. when the Civil War started, a member of the New Orleans Artillery and the Louisiana State Militia. When these State troops were called into the Confederate service, the soldiers were given an opportunity by their colonel, just before leaving the State, to leave the regiment if they did not wish to go. Being a native of liberty-loving France, he could not become reconciled to the cause of slavery, end consequently was first of about thirty-five men to step out of line. Jessie Gentieu family history, 1939

“I would state that the reading of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in the old country influenced me first against slavery. The story was published as a serial in the daily papers; and I remember how intent we were in the evening to hear our father read each installment, and all the remarks we were making about it, how it was possible that the country boasting of being ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ could legalize such an institution, when in France, which was not then a republic, would not tolerate such a thing; for to us children, all the people before God were equal, and the color of the skin had nothing to do with it; but it was only the degree of instruction and civilization that made the difference in people.”

Pierre’s letter from the battlefield to his uncle Darrigrand

Regarding the Gentieu-Baillan name

Full name of the family in France, is Gentieu-Baillan, the last having been added through marriage. The home place is Orthez, Lower or Basses Pyrenees, France - have kept only the name of Gentieu, as being the real family one, both not necessary and shorter in use. My full name otherwise is Pierre Auguste Gentieu-Baillan, shortened to Pierre Gentieu. Born at Tarbes, Hautes or Higher Pyrenees, France on January 26, 1842 during a temporary absence from Orthez by father and mother on a call to his brother who was sick. Taken from record in the family Holy Bible written in Pierre Gentieu’s own hand-writing
The addition of the name of Baillan to the family name of Gentieu was explained verbally by Pierre Gentieu thus: "A girl by the name of Baillan was the last of her family, and rather than have her family name die out, she requested when she married a Gentieu, that her name be added to his, and continued thru the years." This was done in France, and was continued in the U.S.A. by Pierre Gentieu until he enlisted in the Civil War. When the man who signed him up during the war asked him his name, he said, "Pierre Auguste Gentieu-Baillan." Then the man in charge repeated that he wanted his name, and not his pedigree, he replied, "Pierre Gentieu". Jessie Gentieu family history 1939

Pierre’s carte de visite album

Cartes de visite from France in Pierre's carte de visite album.

Pierre prized his father’s French Holy Bible

Pierre’s professions

After the Civil War, Pierre had a chocolate shop in Brooklyn with his younger brother, Joseph, and a French confectionary shop in New York. Joseph came to live in America in 1861, one year after Pierre arrived.

From a chapter on Pierre Gentieu’s photographic contribution to the history of DuPont in the book, Corporate Images: Photography and the DuPont Company 1865-1972
DuPont Powder Company, old Hagley office, Pierre Gentieu on the road
Excerpt of the chronological history of Pierre Gentieu at DuPont Powder Company, Hagley Research Library

Pierre’s 1898 trip to Orthez

Photos that Pierre made during his visit to Orthez in 1898. The ancient bridge, the Gentieu-Baillan chocolate shop, Pierre (center) with his brother-in-law Germain, and nephew Auguste Pondarre.

During the summer of 1898, Pierre Gentieu made a return trip to France, and looked over old family records in the Town Hall. Among his papers are listed these names - Bergerie Marie Gentieu, Nov.9,1750, V. Saudenerx Gentieu, Nov.1,1756 - Marguerite Gentieu, May 5,1759, Maryana Bernard Gentieu, son of Alexis Gentieu and Marie Crohare, July 22, 1764. There is also written, “In 15 July l782, I find one Pierre Gentieu as witness to the christening of Pierre Pierrette.” The balance of the records were destroyed during the French Revolution, so the family tree is incomplete. Jessie Gentieu family history 1939

Pierre's contemporaneous research notes made while in Orthez in 1898.

Pierre’s letter to his son Frederic, 1926, while Frederic was in France. Pierre writes about what he knows of other Gentieu family members in France.

World War 1: Pierre’s son George in France. “I am in your place over here so that America returns to France your services.”

Pierre's son George served in France in World War 1 and visited Orthez three times. Row 1, Pierre with George; George's cousin, Auguste Pondarre who served in the French Army; George with comrade and Auguste. Row 2, P.S. in George’s January 5, 1919 letter to Pierre from where he was stationed at St. Nazaire, France

George Gentieu with Simone Pondarre, who is Auguste Pondarre’s daughter, Sarah Pondarre, Simone’s mother next to him, at the apartment house, La Prairie, owned by Auguste Pondarre.

From a French English Walnut seed, an American family tree grew

Pierre Gentieu 1927 letter to granddaughters Harriet and Esther telling the story of growing a tree at his old home at Rising Sun from the seed of a walnut tree brought home from Orthez in 1898.

Gentieu family motto taken from the motto of the old Capital of Bearn, Orthez, Lower Pyrénées, France

The basis of the Gentieu motto "Touquoy si Gaoses," meaning "Touch It If You Dare" as shown on the family Coat of Arms was taken from an old bridge bearing that inscription at the entrance of Orthez. "Touquoy si Gaoses" is not strictly French, but a Bearnaise language spoken only by a small group of people inhabiting one of the Southern Provinces of France. In the Gentieu home in Orthez there wan a maid who spoke that language. She could understand the Gentieu French, but they could not understand her Bearnaise, so in making the Coat of Arms, Pierre decided to use the Bearnaise, rather than the French, thinking it would be more distinctive, and something no one else could read. He succeeded. Jessie Gentieu history 1939

Ground from Gentieu Vineyard at Orthez, France 1898

Posted on

Gentieu Family Motto

Plaque at the Orthez City Hall, 1994

Toques si Gaouses is the motto of the American Gentieu family. Pierre adopted it from the town motto of his birthplace at Orthez, Lower Pyrenees, France.

Legend has it that this was the motto of Gaston Febus, Lord of the Pyrenees in the 1300’s, and whose castle was right up the street from the fortified bridge that is pictured here. The castle was directly across from the Gentieu homestead. Another theory is that “Toques si Gaouses” was taken from a children’s game in Toulouse. Either way, it works.

This is the stained glass window that was commissioned in 1929 by Frederic, Pierre’s son, to be installed in the fancy house that he was just completing when the stock market crashed. He lost nearly all of his money in the crash. However, he was able to retire to Ventnor on the Jersey shore, where he died in 1951 at the age of 79.

Posted on

William Pynchon, 10th Great Grandfather

Illustration from The History of Springfield in Massachusetts for the Young (1921) by Charles H. Barrows
–

2,048 mathematical possibilities exist for 10th great grandfathers. So it’s really not that crazy to find out that one of mine was the Puritan William Pynchon, who wrote the first book to be banned and burned in America, in 1651.

William Pynchon graduated from Oxford when he was 11 years old in 1596. “William Pynchon was undoubtedly the best reasoner and the best scholar residing in the colony during the first century,” according to the historian, Henry M. Burt.

Pynchon’s book, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption  was a critique of the newly formed society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Calvinism, the dominant religious doctrine of the day. Pynchon wrote that the meritorious price Jesus paid to save humankind and reconcile for Adam and Eve’s disobedience, was obedience to the will of God, and not hell, punishment, and the wrath of God.

The Calvinistic Puritans called Pynchon a heretic and put him on trial. They banned his books and burned them in the Boston Common.

Portrait of William Pynchon by master etcher Louis Orr, 1927

Mural of William Pynchon and the founding of Springfield painted by Umberto Romano in 1937 for the Springfield Main Post Office, now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Office

–

Possible end use of Pynchon’s fur pelts in Europe. Etching by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1643

–

Pynchon was from an old English family that settled in England with William the Conqueror. He came to America in 1630 with his wife, his son and two daughters, via the Winthrop Fleet. He founded Springfield on the Connecticut River. He had good relations with the Native people, with whom he negotiated the purchase of Springfield and traded beaver pelts. He is called a “Puritan entrepreneur” for his success in the fur trade.

Pynchon would not retract anything in his book. He gave all of his land to his son, John, and returned to England in 1654. He wrote more books on religion, including The Jewes Synagogue. He died in 1662.

–

Portrait of William Pynchon from Pinkerton family photo collection

–

William Pynchon is the forebear of Anna Hale Buckingham, my great great great grandmother on my mother’s father’s mother’s side.

Posted on

Remember magazines?

Newsstand magazines. On paper.

I did a lot of work for print magazines over the past 30 years. I recently compiled five volumes of my favorite tearsheets. There are about 1,200 pages total in the five volumes, and I put them in chronological order. It makes a pretty good snapshot of my career.

It was the golden age of magazines. I was lucky to have done this work when I did, because many magazines that I worked with are now defunct or published online only — famous magazines such as Child, Parenting, Baby Talk, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, USA Weekend, American Health, Mademoiselle, McCall’s, Healthy Kids, Epoca (Italy), Life, Ladies Home Journal, Metropolitan Home and Smart Money. Gone!

I also worked with these magazines that are still on the newsstand: New York, Self, Glamour, Esquire, Fortune, Psychology Today, American Baby, Cosmopolitan, and more.

The books are a snapshot of an era, about child-rearing, the big issues of the day, and how graphics and art direction styles changed over the 30 year period. In 1985, when I started photographing babies, times were changing. My photos of babies were completely different from what had been the norm. They were unsentimental and free of adornment, focused on the personality of the baby itself rather than on adult projections… this shift in approach was all it took to make my photos popular with art directors, and I’m proud to have put a fresh face on the millennial generation.


Here are a few highlights:

Babies in pinstripe suits, and that typeface! Definitely 1988! These were McGraw Hill ads that appeared in the New York Times.

My all-time favorite cloth diaper photo in Metropolitan Home, 1989, and a Whittle publication, Special Report, of a toddler making a peace sign. (a shoot that took three redo castings, each call for a little older baby… now we know that they don’t make peace signs until they are 2 1/2)

Remember photo labs? (Definitely more rare now than magazines.) Duggal was a big one in New York, and I assume it probably still is big, and maybe it’s the only one, but don’t quote me. They gave me the “Image Maker Award” and ran my photo in their ad on the back cover of Photo District News.

I shot covers for Baby Talk and American Baby for a few years. I felt very lucky to be chosen for their cover photographer since they were competing magazines by different publishers.

This spread, American Baby on the left, and New York Magazine on the right, just happened to fall that way chronologically, but it works! Nathan Lane was intensely crazy to photograph — I don’t know why he put his fingers in his ears — the babies went home!

It was easier to get babies to play musical instruments than to get them to make a peace sign…This was for Similac, we rented a baby grand piano, violin, drums, trumpet, saxophone, xylophone, and we had a conductor. My mom made the outfits.

Linocolor gave me their high-end scanner to use, and they never wanted it back! It was the only time I ever asked a company for such a favor. On the opposite page, magazines would sometimes write about me. There I am with Anna, telling the story about the peace sign shoot.

This photo of Tom and Anna was used a lot, upside down, sideways, whatever way they wanted.

Newsweek Japan often picked up U.S. Newsweek stories and I loved collecting those tearsheets.

Another Newsweek Japan spread. They were beautifully designed. They had special editions where they would use 10-20 pages of my photos. Beautiful magazines!
I had to throw in this Amazon webpage from 2000, it’s so strange to see in a book! This is when the board book edition of Baby! Talk! first came out. Ranked 2,100 and 5 stars! Just this February, Random House reissued it.
This Time cover came out at just the right time, during a family reunion (explaining a lot of things…) You and Me Baby is my tenth book.
This was a fun project with the Biography Channel — besides Jimi Hendrix and Donald Trump (that little bugger!), there is Salvador Dali, Imelda Marcos and Josephine Baker.
This is part of one of those slick leave-behinds that pharmaceutical reps leave with the doctors after a lunch or weekend in the Bahamas. As all photographers knew, that was where the money was at!
I didn’t just do babies.
Posted on

Anna Hale Buckingham’s engagement valentine

This valentine was created in 1819 by Anna Hale when she was 24, for her fiance, Alvah Buckingham. Somehow the delicate folded paper snowflake cut-out has survived all these years — almost 200 years. I acquired it from Uncle George. It was tucked away in a plastic sleeve in his family history notebook. A poem with 18 verses is written within each fold, front and back.

Young Alvah Buckingham, pioneer settler in southeastern Ohio, took a trip to Glastonbury, Connecticut in 1819 and met Anna Hale, leader of the village choir. Romance ensued along with a hurried wedding, and one week later they rode horseback together to Ohio to start their new life.

The Powers above cannot pretend
To say I’ve a false story pen’d

In the inside sweet turtle dove
I’ve wrote a Moral of my love

These pretty hearts which you behold
Will break where these leaves unfold

Like a lovesick lover full of pain
Love wounded is and breaks on twain

My dearest dear and blest devine
Those pretty hearts like yours and mine

‘But Cupid has between us set a Cross
Which makes me to lament my love

The little birds sing on each tree
To show happiness and how blest they be

Each one chase his own mate
What pleasure they in such a state

But now to let our hearts have ease
Let them both be joined like these

For mine as true as is the Sun
Set both our hearts be joined in one

When very birds did grace the spring
And tune Alphra Buchanham they sing

Liked these sweet birds let us agree
Nor be so cruel unto me

Blessed the day happy the time
That should cause you to be mine

When first my eyes did you behold
I prized you more than precious gold

If you take it in good part
I shall be glad with all my heart

But if you do the same refuse
The paper burn and me excuse

Marriage

Posted on

Alvah and Anna Buckingham of Putnam, Muskingham County, Ohio

Many Springfield Twp. Farms Became Part of the City
Zanesville Sunday Times Signal, Sept. 28, 1958
Dinner at the Pinkerton house in Toledo, 1954. Paintings of Anna and Alvah Buckingham on the wall.
I never thought of my ancestors as being activists by looking at these two in the paintings that I grew up with in my grandparents dining room. But now I see them in an entirely different way! They came from fierce New England Puritan stock who believed that the laws of God trumped the law of the land that allowed slavery. Putnam was a small village across the river from Zanesville Ohio, and my New England ancestors were among the original settlers. Zanesville, on the other hand, was settled by folks from Kentucky and West Virginia. And there were fights.

Putnam Presbyterian Church was active with abolitionist activities. Photo ©1999 Penny Gentieu
Part of the Underground Railroad, this house has several hideaways. The owner, Major Horace Nye (veteran of the War of 1812) was threatened so many times by his foes that he slept with a pitchfork next to him for protection. Photo ©1999 Penny Gentieu 

My ancestors’ names are Alvah and Anna Buckingham. Alvah helped build the Putnam Presbyterian Church in 1835, which was actively involved in the abolitionist movement. William Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was the first minister of the church. Frederick Douglass spoke there in 1852. For many years, the church held a monthly prayer service for the abolition of slavery. The first Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention took place in Putnam, as well as the first publication of the abolitionist newspaper, The Philanthropist. What a great community!

 
Alvah and Anna Buckingham house, 405 Moxahala Avenue, built 1821. Photo ©1999 Penny Gentieu

In 1799, when Alvah Buckingham was 8, his family moved to southeast Ohio, on horseback. In 1819 Alvah met Anna Hale of Glastonbury, Connecticut on a trip back east and married her. They built a house on Moxahala Avenue in 1821. (Three generations have subsequently lived in the house.) He was in the mercantile business with his brother and brother-in-law and later, opened a lumber trade. In 1852, he built the first grain elevator in Chicago, and owned the first grain elevator in Toledo.

In 1865 when Alvah was 74, he and Anna moved to New York City to be closer to their two daughters who also lived in New York City. They owned a home at 13 East 12th St.

In 1866, Alvah took a trip out west with his youngest son, James in a spring wagon over rough roads, “without any apparent fatigue.” (James is my GG Grandfather and grandfather of Elise Pinkerton, born 1904, see blog post, The Tea-Dyed Brown Dress.)

Anna Buckingham died of pneumonia on September 23, 1867, and her remains were brought back to Ohio. Alvah Buckingham died 11 days later, on October 4, 1867.

In 1639, Alvah Buckingham’s Puritan ancestors settled the farthest most reaches of America – Milford, Connecticut. Alvah was descended from immigrant ancestor, Thomas Buckingham, born in Minsden, Herts, England. Alvah’s father, Ebenezer Buckingham, fought in the Revolutionary War.

My grandfather, Sherwood Pinkerton Jr. later to be president of the family business, The Pinkerton Tobacco Company in Toledo, Ohio, is sitting in lower right corner. His mother, Julia Buckingham Pinkerton is standing behind him, next to her father, James Buckingham.  James’ wife, Jane Wills Buckingham is in the center. The room they are in is the front right side of the 405 Moxahala Avenue house, shown above. Photo circa 1905.
Sherwood Pinkerton with the paintings of his great grandparents, in his Central Avenue apartment in Toledo, November 1979, six weeks before he passed away.
Paintings of Anna and Alvah Buckingham, inherited by my mother, were donated to the Zanesville Art Institute in 1980. The museum gave them to the Pioneer and Historical Society of Muskingham County. The paintings now hang in the Increase Mathews house in Putnam, owned by the historical society. Photo ©1999 Penny Gentieu
Increase Mathews house in Putnam, where the portraits of Alvah and Anna Buckingham hang. 

Photo ©1999 Penny Gentieu