The topic of the Pennsylvania Oil Boom has been written about over the decades in a varying manner. The articles I have chosen to compare cover aspects such as photography, nature, and American spiritualism, and each utilize photographs to a certain degree. I have added my own suggestions for additional images that could be used today, acknowledging that these articles were written across the years of 1972 – 2012.
Old Boyd House stereograph, from NYPL Digital Gallery
Miller and Stratton’s article from 1972, “Oildom’s Photographic Historian,” features no less than 40 images, which is not surprising for an article that focuses primarily on a photographer. The authors tell the story of John A. Mather, the prolific photographer of the Pennsylvania oil region, whose collection of glass plate negatives ended up in the Drake Well Museum in the Drake Well Memorial Park since 1934, after being purchased for $100 by the Drake Well Memorial Association. The photographs were preserved on microfilm, but done poorly in 1955. In this article, the authors claim that another attempt to microfilm the plates will be conducted at some point in the future.[1] At present, the Drake Well Museum Library’s website states that it contains about 4,400 original glass plates from John A. Mather, but doesn’t mention microfilm. However, if you want to visit the archive, the library invites researchers to make an appointment or work with their photo research department to purchase copies of original photographs. There is also an online store that visitors may purchase various sizes of photos or objects with the famous Drake Well image printed on them. This suggests that some, if not all images, have been digitized by the library. This bodes well for the future preservation of this unique collection of photographs that help researchers see the oil boom through the viewpoint of someone embedded in the petroleum-seeking action of the 1860s.
The article’s biographical portrait of Mather paints him as an adventurous and curious photographer, who was relatively unknown in 1972, but was instrumental in documenting the oil boom in Western Pennsylvania. Mather was born in England who was the son of a paper-maker, and then learned the trade for himself before immigrating to America in 1856.[2] Mather traveled from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh and then to Nashville to visit his brother and help revive a fledgling paper mill, and had earned $36 while playing his violin on the riverboat, Hibbard, en route to Tennessee. Mather was offered a well-paying job at the paper mill, he refused in order to continue his great American adventure, and headed back to Pittsburgh. While visiting Edmund Mather’s boardinghouse, John Mather met a traveling photographer by the name of Johnson, and became his apprentice as they traveled the countryside in Maryland and West Virginia. By 1858, Mather was out on his own and had purchased his own camera and had a wagon converted into a “darkroom on wheels.”[3]
While living in Ohio, Mather heard of the oil boom that was underway in neighboring Western Pennsylvania through a friend who was operating a bar in Titusville, PA. It would be there that Mather would set up his studio. Muddy streets and the stench of oil permeated the area, and the odd construction of oil derricks and shanty houses would be the land
Mather's floating darkroom, from Miller and Stratton article. Original from Drake Well Museum
scape for Mather’s new photographic endeavor. His photos chronicled the oil fields, rushing to capture “new gushers” by way of hishorse or his floating studio on Oil Creek. He also took portraits of prominent oil industrialists, including Colonel Edwin Drake.[4]
The photos selected in this article by the authors depict a well-rounded look at life during the oil boom period. The photographs focus on oil wells, muddy city street scenes, townspeople who lived amid the boom, oil workers, a self portrait, and even a photo of Mather’s studio and his floating darkroom. The authors also include a line drawing diagram of creating a photograph from a glass plate.
While the images used to this article clearly help illustrate the authors’ portrayal of Mather as a prolific and under-appreciated photographic historian, the quality of some of the images leave room for improvement. However, this could be due to the poor quality of the microfilm that the authors mention in their conclusion. This article would translate well onto the Internet as an online exhibit, as the majority of the article’s pages are devoted solely to images. If better quality scans of the original glass plates were used, more details could be discerned. An online exhibit could also allow for interactivity between the images and information. The captions provided are fairly descriptive, however, they do not contain original source information. Based on the conclusion, readers can surmise that most of the photos, if not all, are from the Drake Well Museum. However, images such as the photographic process leave the reader unsure about its origins. Overall, the article does a good job at introducing John A. Mather to oil industry historians, as his name was not well known prior to this publication.
Mather's self-portrait. From Miller and Stratton article. Original from Drake Well Museum
Mather's studio. From Miller and Stratton article. Original from Drake Well Museum
Brian Black’s article from 1997’s April issue of Pennsylvania History, “Recasting the Unalterable Order of Nature: Photography and the First Oil Boom,” centers the role of photography during the oil rush as an preserver of the landscape, as well as a vital resource in reconstructing the technological advances to extract oil from the ground.[5] Picking up where Miller and Stratton left off in 1972, Black puts more emphasis on the natural history of the oil region. Black bases his history around August 27, 1859, when Edwin Drake first struck oil with his well. From that day forward, an “ecological revolution” began, forever changing the environment the oil region, and subsequent others as the oil industry gained momentum across the country.[6] Western Pennsylvania was the scene of the first oil boom in the country, and photographs of the phenomena are used to reconstruct the geography of the area.
Tankage west side of Oil City, from NYPL Digital Collection
Black makes good use of the Mather collection from the Drake Well Museum, just as Miller and Stratton had hoped future researchers would. The five images Black uses are from John Mather’s glass plate collection. They are each individually attributed with a “Courtesy of Drake Well Museum and Archives, Titusville” statement, and with detailed captions. They support his thesis that photography was used to document a historical change in the landscape, but the inclusion of other photographs could bring a new perspective to his article. With online photo archives, Black could have also made use of the stereograph collection on New York Public Library’s website, for another point of view. The countryside landscapes peppered with oil derricks display not just the visual history of that era, but also the technology used during the oil boom. In an effort to gain economic rewards, the natural landscape was altered, without much regard to conservation.
Black uses the photos to represent the altered landscape and natural history, as they offer more than just words can to present information. In his argument for studying the photographic history, Black writes, “Through the landscape, the interpretation of a period is enhanced so that today’s scholar can use a photographic record to reconstitute the processes and practices of the early industry. Historical images can go beyond being documents so that even their view can become artifact.”[7] What we do not see, however, is the landscape prior to the oil boom. Images of this nature are probably not in existence, as the region only gained popularity during the oil rush.
The photographs that Black studied depict the actual act of oil drilling, from drilling to transportation, reflecting the changes in technology as well. In the 1860s, the images were captured to entertain a curious public audience, as well as those involved in the oil business. Today, we can use the photographs to reconstruct a unique moment in history when technology and natural history collide.
Rochelle Raineri Zuck takes a look at the oil boom in Pennsylvania with a much different angle, and could have benefited from using more images in her 2012 article, “The Wizard of Oil: Abraham James, the Harmonial Wells, and the Psychometric History of the Oil Industry.”[8] Linking the American spiritualism movement to the oil rush, Zuck focuses on the life of Abraham James, a mysterious man who was celebrated for his ability to locate productive oil wells with his psychic abilities, speaking to Native Americans and geologists from beyond the grave. The story begins on Halloween, no less, on October 31, 1866, when James and three other men first visited the oil region in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania.
Zuck uses J.M. Peebles’ biography of James to piece together how this strange man became the legendary “oil wizard,” while acknowledging other biographers who offer various viewpoints on James’ life.[9] He was well-regarded in the spiritualist world, and even in the oil industry until his ridiculed attempt to drill for oil in the middle of the Clarion River that proved to be unsuccessful. James’ life was a mystery, with conflicting census records obscuring his birth date. The one full biography written about him, by Peebles, claims he was born a twin under the Gemini sign to a mother who also had “second sight.”[10] James’ legacy is a complicated one, as conflicting stories say that he was a financial success, while others state that he either earned nothing, or lost his fortune by poor investments.[11] By the early twentieth century, James was regarded as an amusing topic in the oil industry history, as science and technology eclipsed spiritualism.
To support her thesis, Zuck uses a Mather photograph to add a visual depiction of “the Pleasantville excitement,” as “ Abraham James and his spirit-guides stood at the convergence of two nineteenth-century American phenomena: spiritualism and oil.”[12] The image is an undated photograph from the Drake Well Museum with a caption that simply states, “Harmonial Well, John A. Mather.” The photograph is of the oil well mentioned in the caption, and four men standing around the building, who are too far away to identify. The author then provides a brief history of both spiritualism and the oil industry.
James was introduced to Andrew Jackson Davis’ The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, which furthered his beliefs in Harmonial philosophy while in California while visiting his gold-seeking twin brother.
Andrew Jackson Davis’ portrait from The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind
The book is available for free at archive.org.[13] Inside the book there is an image of the author, Andrew Jackson Davis. As this publication was the source of inspiration for James, a visual representation of the author could provide another source of information from the book that was treasured by James, or even an image of the title page.
The only other image included in this article is on page 330, and it is also from the Drake Well Museum. The photograph shows a “general view of the William Porter Farm” as the caption states, which was the site of the first Harmonial Well mentioned at the beginning of the article. The farm has a few building and many oil derricks littering the landscape. Both images were captured by John A. Mather, who was a prominent photographer during the Pennsylvania Oil Boom.
Since this article focuses so heavily on Abraham James, I would have liked to have seen an image of this mysterious man. However, I was unable to find any during a cursory search, and the lack of information on his physical description may be due to the lack of images of James’ likeness.
A map of the oil region in Pennsylvania from the period in which James practiced his spiritualism would have been a welcomed addition. This image from the David Rumsey map collection is a map of the region from 1865 from F.W. Beers’ Atlas of the oil region of Pennsylvania.
However, it is noted that that it has been re-copyrighted in 2005, so permission and usage fees would apply. The value of adding a map is substantial, as it connects readers geographically to historical information contained in the article
Map of Venango County, 1865 from F.W. Beers’ Atlas of the Oil Region of Pennsylvania.
The articles chosen use photos in a variety of ways, which reflect the time periods in which they were written. Miller and Stratton’s early look at the John A. Mather collection is unique in the high volume of photographs used within the article. Relying on outdated microform copies, the images are not as optimal in quality as they could be with newer scanning technology. However, their work set the stage for future historians, including Brian Black, who went on to author a book about the Pennsylvania Oil Boom as it relates to environmental history. Black used a handful of images, all from the Mather collection at the Drake Well Museum. The well-captioned images help make his point that the photographs from this time period are crucial in understanding how the landscape was altered during the ecological revolution that was the oil boom. While focusing on an entirely different facet of the oil boom, Rochelle Raineri Zuck employs the use of only two photographs in her article on practical spiritualism. This aspect of the oil boom deals with the supernatural, which lends itself easily to a host of visual aids and it is disappointing as a reader, but understandable in that her focus is on the written word. In total, this collection of articles illustrate the wide array of uses for photographs in historical research and how technology can play a large role in the quality of images used.
[1] Ernest C. Miller and T. K. Stratton, “Oildom’s Photographic Historian,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 55, no. 1 (January 1972): 54.
[5] Brian Black, “Recasting the Unalterable Order of Nature: Photography and the First Oil Boom,” Pennsylvania History 64, no. 2 (April 1, 1997): 275–99.
[8] Rochelle Raineri Zuck, “The Wizard of Oil: Abraham James, the Harmonial Wells, and the Psychometric History of the Oil Industry,” Journal of American Studies 46, no. 2 (May 1, 2012): 313–36.
[9] J. M. Peebles, The Practical of Spiritualism: Biographical Sketch of Abraham James, Historic Description of His Oil-Well Discoveries in Pleasantville, Pa., Through Spirit Direction (Chicago: Horton & Leonard, 1868), http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/178052.
[10] Zuck, “The Wizard of Oil,” 319.
[13] Andrew Jackson Davis, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations (New York, S. S. Lyon & W. Fishbough, 1847), http://archive.org/details/principlesofnatu00davi.
Black, Brian. “Recasting the Unalterable Order of Nature: Photography and the First Oil Boom.” Pennsylvania History 64, no. 2 (April 1, 1997): 275–99.
Davis, Andrew Jackson. The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations. New York, S. S. Lyon & W. Fishbough, 1847. http://archive.org/details/principlesofnatu00davi.
Miller, Ernest C., and T. K. Stratton. “Oildom’s Photographic Historian.” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 55, no. 1 (January 1972): 1–54.
Peebles, J. M. The Practical of Spiritualism: Biographical Sketch of Abraham James, Historic Description of His Oil-Well Discoveries in Pleasantville, Pa., Through Spirit Direction. Chicago: Horton & Leonard, 1868. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/178052.
Zuck, Rochelle Raineri. “The Wizard of Oil: Abraham James, the Harmonial Wells, and the Psychometric History of the Oil Industry.” Journal of American Studies 46, no. 2 (May 1, 2012): 313–36.
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