Project DirectorSponsored by The Kent American Revolution Bicentennial Commision with cooperation from the Ohio American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. This project was also made possible through the support of The George Gund Foundation of Cleveland, John Davey Foundation of Kent, and Kent State University.
Ralph L. Harley, Jr.
Assistant Professor of Art History School of Art, Kent State University
Contributors to Catalogue
Betty Trory McCormick
Rebecca Fosnaugh Budd
Jane E. Farver
Deborah A. Figley
Susan E. Hrivnak
Susan Klein
Mark J. Manenete
Anne Rohrbaugh
Doreen E. Swensen
by RALPH L. HARLEY, JR.
Assistant Professor of Art History School of Art, Kent State University
He was a man of unlimited enthusiasms and had an insatiable interest in people, nature and life in general. In his eighty-eight years he had acquired and enjoyed a multitude of friendships of fellowman from all walks of life. He expressed surprise that the Good Lord should have allowed him to live so many good years and enjoy every minute of it. A few minutes before his death he looked out the window at early morning sunshine and said, "Isn't this a beautiful morning? It's going to be my kind of a day."
Betty Trory McCormick
During the past decade photographic history has been undergoing reappraisal. This changing perspective has given rise to an interest in regional developments and the discovery of large bodies of work produced by serious amateurs. The materials of Arthur J. Trory are among the more important collections. They represent seventy-eight years of continuous photographic activity by a single amateur. The subject of this exhibition is Trory's early interests as imagemaker and collector. It has been prepared especially for America's Bicentennial.
Arthur J. Trory's life coincided with the second phase of amateur photography: the snapshot. He was born at Lyons, Ohio, in 1879, the same year that George Eastman made the dry plate process practical. The Eastman Dry Plates, followed by the hand-held camera, triggered the revolution in amateur photography that was well underway by the time Trory received his first camera at age ten.
Entries in his diaries and a journal of newsclippings indicated that Trory actively photographed in Kent and its environs as early as 1896. Newspapers in Northeastern Ohio were publishing his prints. Indeed, before he was twenty, Trory had collected some 1300 photographic prints and was recognized as one of Ohio's finest amateur photographers. Through the next sixty-eight years this interest in photography was sustained. After retirement in 1949, he continued to take photographs, attempted to organize his collection, and in some instances reprinted older negatives, forming what has become known as The Arthur J. Trory Photograph Collection. On Thanksgiving Day, 1967, Trory made his last photographs at age eighty-eight, two days before his death, bringing to a close an extraordinary life-long avocational. involvement with photography.
Some believe that Arthur J. Trory was nothing more than an amateur. By definition this means only that one is a lover of the art. However, one might recall the observation of Helmut Gernsheim, the English photographer and historian: "Indeed the progress of photography in its picturemaking aspect has at every period been largely due to the work of serious amateurs." 1 The issue of Trory's photographic contribution then would seem to rest on our perception of the word "serious" as distinct from what has commonly been called the "pushbutton photographer."
Alfred Stieglitz in 1897 pointed out the dangers introduced by Eastman's readily available commercial materials which opened the way for "photographing by the yard."2 Bernard Shaw observed, "The photographer is like the cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity."3 These opinions do not describe accurately the photography of Arthur J. Trory.
Trory was a spontaneous recorder of life about him. At times he was an avowed photojournalist; at others, a genre realist; and, still others, a creator of mood. But, while he was prolific, he was not mindless. There existed in his early work a freshness and vitality balanced with a conscious sense of composition. Whatever the intangible matrix of creativity may be, he possessed a capacity to infuse his work with a personal artistry. The ability to "imbue ordinary subjects with artistic quality bearing a personal stamp" was by Gernsheim's definition the mark of a serious amateur.4 It was precisely this "personal stamp;quot; that established Trory's credibility as an imagemaker worthy of posterity's consideration.
The research that has produced this exhibition and catalogue began during Spring Quarter 1976, six weeks after the American History Research Center at Kent State University announced receipt of the Collection. Nine members of a graduate seminar on American Art History. 1893-1945, and a tenth student from the undergraduate section, elected the Collection as their term project. The uncatalogued material presented a rare opportunity for students to gain valuable first-hand experience with primary research materials housed on the campus, working within the confines of the course structure with additional guidance from archival staff. So vast was the material to be examined that research extended through the summer and is yet in progress.
From the project's inception, it was determined that the student should have the principal role in reporting the findings. Given the scope of material and the continual arrival of new information from the donor, however, it became evident that only a portion could be considered for exhibition. With these circumstances, the decision was made to present the early years, spanning the mid-1890's when Trory came to Kent, until 1927 when he and the family moved to Hudson, Ohio.
The progress report begins with Ms. Jane E. Farver's overview of the prints. It is followed by Ms. Doreen E. Swensen's discussion of the condition and types of surviving negatives and Ms. Deborah A. Figley's observations on the camera equipment. Ms. Farver and Ms. Swensen are graduate students in art history and studio art, respectively; Ms. Figley is an undergraduate art history major. Their reports are followed by Mrs. Rebecca Fosnaugh Budd's research into Trory's coverage of the 1913 flood, Mr. Mark J. Manente's dating of prints showing Kent bridges, Ms. Figley's interpretation of Trory's portraits, and conclude with the findings by Mrs. Anne Rohrbaugh and Susan E. Hrivnal on the Kent Opera House. Mrs. Budd and Mrs. Rohrbough graduate students in art history; Mr. Manenete and Mrs. Hrivnak are graduate students in art education. The closing statement is by Mrs. Susan Klein, graduate student in studio art.
The chronology of Arthur J. Trory's life has been prepared by Betty Trory McCormick, his daughter, and, Patricia McCormick Grant, granddaughter. The enthusiastic efforts of Mrs. McCormick to recall memories of her father and search for additional materials have made it possible to verify and expand the research.