The Negative Rescue Project

I have been doing film photography for the past year, which has led me down the rabbit hole of finding old cameras, expired film, and now old glass and film negatives dating around 1910. They are from a Wisconsin photographer, and after he passed away, the family gave the negatives to a high school photography teacher. Those negatives had sat in a box untouched for over 30 years since then, and now I have them.

The goal of this project is to preserve history. I want to learn about the time period and the man behind the camera, A.J. Kron. I spent a few nights glancing at the negatives seeing not only places and events but friends and family. I plan to scan each one and find the locations. Luckily some of the film negatives have a notecard of what each photo is. I will also document and consolidate information given to me by the people who want to go on this journey. So far, I have collected data from helpful Facebook groups, emails to my site, and Reddit. A huge shout out to the people who helped find the information on the photos so far.

Update: June 14th, 2021.
I have decided to pause the glass negative boxes and shift to the film envelopes. There is a series of numbered envelopes with corresponding notecards. I have finally been able to go through most of them and match the note cards to the numbered photos in each envelope. Because of this, I have decided to show this series, as it will hopefully give more context to the boxes. One thing to note, the boxes look to be 1908-09, and this series of film looks to be 1913 based on the dates of the notecards. In addition, each notecard is titled by person and indicates which numbered photos they appear in and some context as to what is going on.

To add to Arthur J. Kron’s Biography, based on the notecards included, he was a part of the Christian Endeavors Society around 1913. He traveled to County Park, now Grant Park, for one meet-up. He also traveled to Wausau for a Christian Endeavors Convention.

Update: August 10th, 2021.
I took a few weeks off, but I am back. As of right now, I know the photos span from 1903 to 1913. I found a notecard recently that has widened my scope to 1903; I used to think the photos started around 1908. Currently, I have taken a hiatus from the glass negatives and shifted to the film negatives with notecards. This will allow me to get more perspective on A.J. Kron and, hopefully, map out the photos without notecards more easily. The envelopes for 1-50 of the film negatives are very descriptive, giving me dates, locations, and names of people. You will be able to see which are film and which are glass in the IG stream because I am putting a white border/matte on them. The first film photo posted is of Arthur’s future wife, Edith Holloway. It’s only 1913 in the picture, and they get married in 1916 based on Ancsetry.com. Currently, we have left Wisconsin and are on a trip to Niagara Falls. This takes place in notecards 51-143ish. They are much less descriptive but do at least tell me the city and the year, which is 1910.

Update October 8th, 2021.
The project has taken me to the Niagara Falls area. If you have been following the project, I have been posting the area for over two months. A reporter from WGRZ News in Buffalo, New York, Danielle Church, reached out to write about it. You can find the article here or watch the video below!

Update: November 1st, 2021.
Thank you to those who joined in on the trip to Niagara Falls. I hope to visit in person one day and take photos to match the old ones for a past and present comparison. We now travel back to Wisconsin and further back in time. I am unsure who put the envelopes and the notecards together, but the order does not make much sense. 109 to 133 will be a vacation to Cecil, Wisconsin in 1903 even though we started in 1913 for photos 1-50 and went to 1910 Niagara Falls for 51-108. I will note that we now have a decade of Arthur’s travels, and I know that the non-dated negatives will fill gaps. Cecil was barely a village then, and it is only 500ish people now. So I have to assume Arthur had family in the area.

Update: January 5th, 2022.
There is now a Facebook Page! Click here to go to The Negative Rescue Project on Facebook! After sharing photos to Facebook groups that follow Wisconsin history, Milwaukee, Wausau, Buffalo, and New York, I realized many people do not have Instagram but love seeing the photos. The Facebook groups have been more than helpful in finding information and locations of the pictures, and I thought it would be to create a space better for discussion. So if you have Facebook, you can join in! The page will be a mess for a little bit as it catches up to the Instagram account.

Update: February 7th, 2022.

After a vote on Instagram, we are back to the glass negative boxes. While scanning in the “Portraits” box, I noticed most of the images are not portraits but the construction of the Milwaukee Auditorium. This finding leads me to believe that the boxes were shuffled around at some point and that the “Portraits” box is glass box 5, Auditorium Series. I may need to scan the other four glass boxes to sort everything out to go forward.

Update: March 9th, 2022.

I have created a brief overview video of the project and where we are now! However, I felt that it would be nice to put a face to the project and talk about a few things that people have asked me in the past. In addition, I want to do deeper dives in the future on different parts of the collection, so if you have any requests, let me know!

Update: Jun 6th, 2022.

I took a break for a bit. It takes a lot of time to clean, scan, and digitally clean all of these images, but I am back now! As an update, we are currently on the envelope series: Bridges & Viaducts. This was voted on by the people who follow the Instagram, @thenegativerescueproject. We also were interviewed for a podcast! So if you would like to hear my ramble, you can do so at the video below!

Update: Feb 2nd, 2024.

I haven’t updated this in a bit, but we were posting for about half the year of 2023. I had to take a break for life events like my mom getting married, myself getting married, and attending other weddings. Along with getting my studio up and running and multiple art shows. It was quite the year. But we are chugging along with the Negative rescue project. We just wrapped up the Parade envelope. I will be letting my followers choose another envelope in the coming days. We still have so much to get through!

Currently scanned negatives to be posted:

Glass Box 1: “Miscellaneous.”
– June 1908 – Milwaukee

Glass Box 2: “Office & Party Flashlights”
– Date unknown – Milwaukee

Glass Box 3: “Ringling Bros, Downtown Bldgs, Etc.”
– July 1908 – Merill Park, Milwaukee

Glass Box 4: “Views of Special Interest”
– 1908 – Milwaukee

Glass Box 5: “Auditorium Series”
– 1908 – Milwaukee

Numbered Film Envelopes: 1-48
– 1913 – Various

Numbered Film Envelopes: 49-108
– 1910 Niagara Falls Trip

Views of the Falls (51-56)
Rapids and River (57-63)
Bridges (64-68)
Niagara Glen (69-77)
Cliffs and Banks of the Gorge (78-82)
Miscellaneous (83-90)
Buffalo, New York (91-96) 
Detriot, New York (97-103)
– (I believe they meant Detroit, Michigan.)
Views of the Falls (104-108)

Cecil Wisconsin (109-133)
– 1903 Vacation – 25 Negatives, buildings, streets, groups, etc. These are the earliest known negatives in the collection. 1903 – 1913 is currently known period, one entire decade of photos!

Cogeshall Company (134-137)
– 1911 – There is no official notecard for this envelope, but there are multiple notecards about the shots in the envelope taking place at the Cogeshall Co. in Milwaukee.

Family (138-142)
– 1911 – Again, there is no official notecard for the envelope, but multiple notecards tell who each family member is in the photos.

Envelope Series – Milwaukee Parks
Lake
Juneau
McKinley
Riverside
Soldiers Home
Whitefish Bay
Washington

Glass Box Redo: Auditorium Series
-1908 – Milwaukee
(After finding that the Portraits box was full of Milwaukee Auditorium photos, I felt I should redo that box properly while I resort out all of the boxes)

Envelope Series – Towns near Milwaukee
Cedarburg
Thiensville
Watertown

Envelope – Portraits A.J. Kron
This envelope has expanded my timespan from 1903 to 1914 and now to 1917.

Envelope – Circus

Envelope – Bridges & Viaducts

Envelope Series – Lake Trip 1911
Lake Trip 1911 
Mackinac Island
Hancock-Houghton
Duluth
Sunsets

Envelope – Niagara Falls
(I believe this to be an extra from the earlier Niagara series)

Envelope – Parades

Glass Box 6: Portraits 
– 1908 – Milwaukee

Glass Box 7: Jan 13 1909
– This box mostly contains the wedding of Arthur’s brother Fred Kron that happened in October, and I believe the date on the box is when these dry plates were developed.

Glass Box 8: Exposed People  ←We are currently here

Envelope Series – Wisconsin Dells
Dells – Witches Gultch
Dells – River Scenes
Dells – Coldwater Canyon
Dells – Standing Rock

Envelope – Buildings

Envelope – Portraits  – Miscellaneous

Envelope – Portraits – Family

Envelope – Chicago

Envelope – Detroit

Envelope – Groups – Flashlights

Envelope – Groups – Family

Envelope – Groups – Miscellaneous

Envelope – Ships

Envelope – Unmarked