"Exploring the art of Photography"
"Auto Journey-America"
by Art Vaughan, HonNEC-MA
Monday, February 3, 07:30 PMOn June 11, 1919, Henry Andrew Spallholz and family set out from Salem, New York, to see America’s national parks. Henry packed his family, camping equipment, tools and two cameras in his 1917 Haynes Roadster and headed west. In 1919 there were just 6.7 million cars in America. There was no interstate highway system. The national park system was thirty-seven years young. In this fledgling environment for long-distance travel the Spallholz family motored west over good roads, bad roads, and sometimes where there were no roads at all. Today modern superhighways make driving across the country easy, but in 1919 encountering dusty dirt and rutted muddy roads while traveling between cities and states was common, as well as the tremendous challenges that came with traversing them. These images show a young family both energized and beleaguered by the length of the journey: 10,400 miles, driven over 96 days.
These family photographs were lost for a generation before they were discovered by Art Vaughan, who was stationed in Portland, Maine, with the Coast Guard. He found 330 glass lantern slides and their original lantern slide projector in a Salvation Army Thrift Store. Years later, when he posted some of the photographs online, the Spallholz descendants recognized their grandfather’s photographs and contacted Mr. Vaughan. This serendipitous story, nearly sixty years in the making, is documented in the book ‘Auto Touring America’s National parks---The photographs of H. A. Spallholz.This program consists of about 150 lantern slide and album print images taken by Henry Spallholz during their journey. Because all the images were taken using early orthochromatic black and white roll film, he purchased a small number of commercial color lantern slides at national parks when available. Upon returning to New York, he had a large number of lantern slides created from the original negatives, for presenting programs to various groups. Since all the images had to be digitized for book production, it was possible to put together this program, eliminating the need to project and cook the slides using the original Bausch & Lomb 1917 ‘Home Balopticon’. Also included is a small section describing the 3A Graflex and Kodak 3A Autographic cameras he used, the lantern slide collection and projector, plus steps taken to restore some damaged slides.
Art Vaughan of North Andover, Massachusetts, has been active in photography for over 40 years. Over a twenty-five-year period he worked for a number of companies and performed extensive work in Analytical Industrial Photography for microcircuit development. After joining the Merrimack Valley Camera Club, he served a total of 9 years as club president, and 16 years as print competition chairman, and has been awarded an Honorary Life Membership in that organization. He’s also a member of the Massachusetts Camera Naturalists and the Photographic Historical Society of New England. He's an Honorary Member and Vice President of the New England Camera Club Council, where he served for 18 years as the NECCC Print Competition Director and ‘live’ commentator for the ‘Best of the NECCC’ Traveling Print Program. Art’s photographic experience and interests include: anamorphic-Cinema-scope, macro photography, stereo imaging, color and black & white print making, and digital restoration of antique photographs, lithographs, engravings, and etchings. He has served throughout New England, and beyond as a digital image and print competition judge and lecturer.