25
●
(SAULTE SAINTE MARIE, MICHIGAN)
Early 20th-century album with 36 proto-modernist photographs depicting movable dams, flood
gates, turbines, the power house, generators, and beautifully engineered structures in Sault Ste. Marie,
Michigan, the Northern Gateway to Canada. The Sault is home to the world-famous Soo Locks,
which connect Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Silver prints, 7
3
/
4
x9
1
/
4
inches (18.4x23.5 cm.), each
is linen backed, with a caption, inventory number, and date in the negative. Oblong 4to, suede,
stained; contents tight. 1899-1902
[600/900]
The unidentified photographer responsible for these cool and crisp pictures rendered the structures with
a meticulous eye that foreshadows the principles associated with the modernist German school known
as the Neue Sachlachkeit [New Objectivity].The fact that his pictures predate this period—they were
produced nearly two decades earlier—speaks to a changing cultural environment in which industrial
forms came to epitomize the modern age.
