6 Minneapolis Picture Album, 1870-1935: Images of Norwegians in the City* by Deborah L. Miller The selection of images presented here is meant to convey a sense of the many possibilities of photographic research for urban ethnic history. But the photographs are the starting point. That is the difference between using pictures as illustrations for assertions already derived from verbal sources and using them as sources themselves along with more traditional materials. The author does not subscribe to the easy idea that a photograph is worth 1,000 words. Picture research carries with it the responsibility and the opportunity for investigating verbal sources, both written and oral, as well. Such research produces facts and stories stimulated or evoked by the picture that even a close "reading" of the image alone would never yield. Once the researcher begins looking at photographs, they often become quite alluring. The apparent "truth" of a historical image differs considerably from that of a document, but it is important to be as skeptical of pictures as of other *The author acknowledges with gratitude the assistance of those people who made pictures available from their private collections: Nina Draxten, Hilda and Ole Kringstad, Rolf and Joyce Wunder. She also wishes to thank Bonnie Wilson, Tracey Baker, and Marcia Anderson of the Minnesota Historical Society, the Sons of Norway's Liv Dahl, and freelance writer Dave Wood for their enthusiastic assistance. 131 132 Deborah L. Miller sources. Like words, photographs can manipulate and distort the past and convey misinformation. The absence of material may be as telling as its presence, though the reasons for the absence are often complex. There may be few pictures of city people at work, for example, for a number of reasons: because photographers did not choose to take pictures of those activities; because people did not save pictures of those activities ; because people have not donated such pictures to the repositories that now hold photographs of Norwegian Minneapolis . Each of these possible reasons in turn suggests several possible answers to the question: "why not?" Photographers may not have taken many pictures of city people working because many city people worked inside, where lighting conditions made photography difficult in its early years. Professional photographers took pictures that they were hired to take, or that they thought people would want to buy; people working may not have fit into either category. Most amateurs took family pictures, expressing pride in possessions , commemorating family outings and major events in family Ufe. Some subjects seemed to cry out to be photographed by professional and amateur alike: massive ethnic celebrations and small gatherings to celebrate Norway's Constitution Day (May 17) or Midsummer, synodical annual meetings or reunions of bygdelag members. The compiler of this essay found, to her surprise, that relatively few pictures of Norwegian Minneapolis have found their way into repositories in the Upper Midwest or in Norway. Research at the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minneapolis Public Library's Minneapolis History Collection , the Norwegian-American Historical Association Archives , Northfield, Minnesota, and Vesterheim: the Norwegian -American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, turned up far fewer images than expected. Research in Norwegian collections , even the large ones in Hamar (the Emigration Museum) and Stavanger (the District Archives), yielded almost nothing. All of which probably means only that most photographs documenting the Norwegian experience in Minneapolis are still in private hands. Minneapolis Picture Album 133 The fact that more photographs in this essay document the Norwegian- American celebrations of 1914 (the centennial of the Norwegian constitution) and 1925 (the centennial of the arrival in America of the first Norwegian emigrant ship, the Restauration) than young women working as domestic servants or men laboring in the flour mills means only that more pictures exist of the former activities than of the latter. Although one might wish for more pictures of people doing the family laundry or making barrels, the importance of all the photographs from 1914 and 1925 should not be minimized . They reveal a great deal about Norwegian- American identity in Minneapolis in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Studio portraits, too, contribute to the self-image of Minneapolis Norwegians, and portraits, though not many are included in this...