What does it take to make a photograph findable? Behind the images researchers discover in our collections are years of work describing the places, people, and activities they depict. SMA is celebrating a milestone in that work: with the help of many volunteers over the years, we have completed description and access of the entire original set of Seattle Engineering Department negatives.
The Engineering Department Negatives (Record Series 2613-07), dating from 1910 to 1994, document the work of building and maintaining Seattle. Subjects include street paving, bridge construction, water and sewer installations, and damage caused by earthquakes and landslides. Photographers also recorded major projects such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct and I-5, along with pipelines, reservoirs, and tunnels serving the city. Images also capture major feats of engineering such as the downtown regrades and the City’s work on the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
These photographs can reveal much more than the project that brought a photographer to a particular location. A view of street construction may also capture a neighborhood business, a family home, a passing pedestrian, or a building that has since disappeared. Images created for practical City purposes have become valuable sources for exploring how Seattle has changed.
The collection also documents the people behind City work. Alongside infrastructure are photographs of employees and elected officials, awards, retirement celebrations, and holiday gatherings. Together, they offer a view of both municipal projects and the lives of the people who carried them out.
One of the photographers behind this series is Nick Cirelli, who took photos for the Engineering Department from the 1970s through the 1990s. Cirelli told us that he was fascinated by the historical films and negatives in the collection and enjoyed having access to them as part of his job. He added, “History is a great teacher.”
Recently, Cirelli delivered a small cache of SED negatives and prints to SMA that he discovered in his personal collection. Another group of negatives were returned to SMA by our colleagues at The Seattle Public Library, who identified approximately 500 Engineering Department negatives in the Paul Dorpat collection. We are grateful to Cirelli and library staff for helping reunite these materials to complete the Engineering Department’s photographic record.
Completed description does not mean every negative has been digitized. The finding aid links researchers to the collection, and thousands of scanned images are on the Digital Collections site. For help locating photographs or accessing images that are not online, contact us at archives@seattle.gov.
Thank you to all the volunteers who helped us reach this milestone!