Dahlstrom Glass Plate Negative Collection
South Main Street, Essex, Connecticut Looking North Toward the Churches on Methodist Hill
Photo Galleries
The project to scan and print the Dahlstrom Glass Plate Negative Collection is funded by a grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council.
Around Essex, Harold Dahlstrom was called Hap. He always seemed Happy and this fit him well as a creditable short for Harold. Hap was born in December of 1914. He and his brother epitomized the ‘Greatest Generation.’ Born of Swedish speaking immigrants that landed here in Essex around the turn of the century, Hap, his brother Sig and sister Evelyn, learned the language, were schooled in our culture, played all the American games, loved America and above all - loved Essex. They worked through the depression, then fought for their country in the Good War. Hap was to be sent to the front in France. He taught, then used a new military devise called Radar. Radar was a secret. We had it first and Hap was always proud to be able to be part of this service, but like most of the ‘Greatest Generation,’ hardly ever spoke of it. This was simply what they did. After the service Hap and Sig then ran Dahlstrom Paint and Wallpaper in this town for over fifty years. Hap loved classical music. He helped record, on tape, some of the greatest works of Charles Munch and Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Symphony and the Pops. They are now the property of MIT. Hap was designing sound equipment before Hi - Fi became a household word. Hap collected art, designed wonderful interiors, loved music and collected original glass plate photos of Essex and the area. This wonderful photographic collection reflects and preserves that which must have been vivid memories now gone with that Dahlstrom generation. However as the rest of us look at modern Essex, we can now remember how they saw our town. This collection and this exact perpetuation could only make Carl Harold Dahlstrom so very very Happy.” The above warm remembrance of Harold Dahlstrom was written by his nephews Jim and Tim Eastland when Hap passed away in 2000. We hope he is very very happy that Jim and Tim decided that his wonderful collection of glass plate negatives should be donated to the Connecticut River Museum. Harold’s collection of at least 2000 negatives will help preserve not only unique images of our local area but also the White Mountains, Mt. Pisgah, and Niantic to name a few of the identified locations. The collection also documents the evolution of the industry from large plates to the small plastic film negative we use today. Harold got started collecting when he acquired the contents of an attic in the 1950s that included glass negatives. He knew early photographers like Knowles when he moved to Old Saybrook and Hauser Bob from Essex. Many of the Essex images were done by Knowles. The New York Times purchased images of New York from Harold, including the only known views of the construction of the Statue of Liberty in 1886. The museum is thrilled to have this incredible collection and pleased that Jim and Tim chose to donate them. The museum hopes to develop a grant project to catalog and rehouse the negatives andcreate an archive of the images for research.
Around Essex, Harold Dahlstrom was called Hap. He always seemed Happy and this fit him well as a creditable short for Harold. Hap was born in December of 1914. He and his brother epitomized the ‘Greatest Generation.’ Born of Swedish speaking immigrants that landed here in Essex around the turn of the century, Hap, his brother Sig and sister Evelyn, learned the language, were schooled in our culture, played all the American games, loved America and above all - loved Essex.
They worked through the depression, then fought for their country in the Good War. Hap was to be sent to the front in France. He taught, then used a new military devise called Radar. Radar was a secret. We had it first and Hap was always proud to be able to be part of this service, but like most of the ‘Greatest Generation,’ hardly ever spoke of it. This was simply what they did.
After the service Hap and Sig then ran Dahlstrom Paint and Wallpaper in this town for over fifty years. Hap loved classical music. He helped record, on tape, some of the greatest works of Charles Munch and Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Symphony and the Pops. They are now the property of MIT. Hap was designing sound equipment before Hi - Fi became a household word. Hap collected art, designed wonderful interiors, loved music and collected original glass plate photos of Essex and the area.
This wonderful photographic collection reflects and preserves that which must have been vivid memories now gone with that Dahlstrom generation. However as the rest of us look at modern Essex, we can now remember how they saw our town. This collection and this exact perpetuation could only make Carl Harold Dahlstrom so very very Happy.”
The above warm remembrance of Harold Dahlstrom was written by his nephews Jim and Tim Eastland when Hap passed away in 2000. We hope he is very very happy that Jim and Tim decided that his wonderful collection of glass plate negatives should be donated to the Connecticut River Museum. Harold’s collection of at least 2000 negatives will help preserve not only unique images of our local area but also the White Mountains, Mt. Pisgah, and Niantic to name a few of the identified locations. The collection also documents the evolution of the industry from large plates to the small plastic film negative we use today.
Harold got started collecting when he acquired the contents of an attic in the 1950s that included glass negatives. He knew early photographers like Knowles when he moved to Old Saybrook and Hauser Bob from Essex. Many of the Essex images were done by Knowles. The New York Times purchased images of New York from Harold, including the only known views of the construction of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
The museum is thrilled to have this incredible collection and pleased that Jim and Tim chose to donate them. The museum hopes to develop a grant project to catalog and rehouse the negatives andcreate an archive of the images for research.
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