She deciphers Everett’s past

Published 10:54 pm Wednesday, October 22, 2008

EVERETT — The clues are there if you know where to look.

Wearing white cotton gloves, Lynne McCrory sifts through hundreds of brittle negatives from photos taken nearly a century ago.

She’s carefully restoring the past at the Everett Public Library.

As a volunteer archivist, she must look for clues in photograph collections that will tell her when the pictures were taken, where they were taken and by whom.

What may appear to be a scribble in the corner of a negative may be the initials of the photographer. Numbers may mean a date or the address where the photo was taken. It’s a job that requires her to be part detective and part cryptographer.

McCrory is archiving the Juleen Collection, which comprises more than 5,000 photos.

“The collection was from one of Everett’s largest commercial photo studios from 1908 to 1954,” McCrory said.

The negatives, ranging in size from that of a postcard to 8 by 10 inches, are processed by McCrory and scanned, depending on their condition.

Currently she is working through a series of photos taken in 1920 of an Everett that has long since passed.

“The streets, the businesses, the mills and the machinery, they all tell a story,” McCrory said. “I love seeing machine operators working on the line, it adds a sense of nostalgia.”

According to historian David Dilgard, volunteers like McCrory are essential to their work. Dilgard works in the Northwest Room of the Everett Public Library, a virtual cornucopia of historic material for the area. The library receives historical documents and photos that require archiving, some coming in pristine condition from private collections and others arriving in unorganized heaps.

“Archiving is essential to our operations and in processing our collections,” Dilgard said. “Sorting them and caring for those materials is a challenge.”

Dilgard is thankful that McCrory comes with a background in historical preservation and museum archiving. McCrory used to work for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

While archiving doesn’t require someone to be Sherlock Holmes, there is a small amount of detective work involved and that makes discoveries important, Dilgard said.

McCrory still finds the joy in delving into the historical materials. She considers the work she does on Everett’s past will make enlightened contributions to its future.

“What I am doing is behind the scenes, but I feel good about our ongoing projects — I know what there is at end and what it will be,” McCrory said. “Helping others get a greater grasp of historical Everett.”

Reporter Justin Arnold: 425-339-3432 or jarnold@heraldnet.com.