Photographer’s Work Now at National Museum
Richard Jay Angelo Sr., November 1989, with his Speed Graphic camera. (Lebonan Daily News File Photo)
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The life’s work of photographer Richard “Jay” Angelo Sr. has been accepted by the National Museum of American History, part of the prestigious Smithsonian Institution, the national museum in Washington, D.C.
On Saturday, Smithsonian archivist Craig Orr loaded thousands of Angelo’s negatives, his photo albums and logs into his vehicle at the home of Jeanette Laverty, Angelo’s daughter. For more than 30 years, Angelo captured Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s mining operations in the Cornwall area, creating a rare glimpse into the industry. There are between 20,000 and 30,000 negatives — mostly black and white — in Angelo’s collection.
“It’s a very important story in American history. The iron deposits here in eastern Pennsylvania were one of the most expansive and richest in the nation, and the story of the people mining those deposits is really great,” Orr said of the collection.
Laverty said her family is excited that their father’s work is going to the national museum. “They said one of the key things about the collection was his (her father’s) intense documentation of everything,” she said. “He was extremely detail-oriented.”
“I’m very proud,” added her brother, Richard Angelo Jr.
Angelo kept detailed logs of all of the photos he took, creating a numerical index, noting the place, date and location of each one.
Angelo died in January 1997. After her mother died 11 years ago, Laverty said, the family decided to sell some of Angelo’s albums that contained community photos, such as schools, old buildings that no longer exist, or Cornwall Manor. Some albums they kept to compile a book in the future.
“We didn’t realize what he had until we started cleaning it out,” she said.
It was Laverty’s son, Ryan, who suggested the family donate the mining photos and negatives to the Smithsonian or another museum.
“It took about a year to correspond with the Smithsonian. I emailed them a sample of a negative,” Laverty said.
Laverty said her father wasn’t a fancy photographer, but he had a knack for taking black-and-white photographs using a Speed Graphic camera with 4-by-5-inch film.
“His perspective on some of the photos is amazing,” she said.
In June, Orr examined the collection in detail at Laverty’s home in Rexmont. An acquisition committee met in late June and agreed to accept the donation for the museum’s vast collection.
Orr said the museum has a lot of information about coal, especially Pennsylvania coal.
“But we have almost nothing on iron mining, as far as archival documentation, especially something that goes back as far as this does. For a number of reasons, it’s very interesting to us,” he said.
Until it closed in 1980, the Cornwall ore mine was the longest continuously operated mine in North America, having started in 1734. Bethlehem Steel Corp. acquired the mines in 1916.
Orr said the scale of the operations at the mine was “prodigious,” and second only to Minnesota’s famous Mesabi Range in terms of volume and quality of the iron ore.
Angelo started working on a labor gang in the mine right out of high school. In 1942, he joined the United States Navy. After the war, he returned to the mines, where he worked in the tool room and then moved into the engineering department. In 1947, he began taking photographs for the company. He retired in 1980.
His work includes photos of the workers, mining equipment, safety competitions, company officials, visitors, rock formations and aerial shots of quarry and strip mining. The photos also include the company’s mining operations in Hanover, Steelton, as well as, in western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan and Ontario, Canada.
Orr said the negatives would be rearranged and archived in special boxes.
“Then we will draw up a finding aid - a written description of the collection - that will be made available to the public so anyone who is interested in the story can come and find out what they want,” he said.
He estimated 550 scholars use the museum’s archives each year to do research. The museum also receives thousands of letters, phone calls and emails annually.
The negative collection is not likely to be on display at the museum, but some of the print photographs could be loaned to other museums for exhibits.
— Chris Sholly, Lebanon Daily News
