Photographer Takes You on a Historic Photographic Tour of the Upper Peninsula
The Historical Society of Greater Lansing is hosting Jack Deo, a photographic historian from Marquette, Michigan for a lecture on the historic photographers of the Upper Peninsula including the outlaw “Black Bart,” who killed a man while robbing a stagecoach, 1:00 p.m., Saturday, April 15 at the Library of Michigan, Lake Erie Room, 702 W. Kalamazoo St., Lansing.
During his long career in Marquette, Deo has collected nearly 1 million images taken in the Upper Peninsula dating back to the early timber and mining industry days. The photographs represent every important industrial, cultural and social location and event in the Upper Peninsula ranging from mining and lumbering to dancing bears and Native Americans.
He recently received the Upper Peninsula Folklife Award presented by the Beaumer U.P. Heritage Center at Northern Michigan University. He also served as a curator for a current exhibit, “Exposing Photography: Anything but a Small Business,” at the Marquette Historical Society.
Since moving to Marquette in the early 1970s to attend Northern Michigan University, Deo has collected and curated some of the most important photographic collections emanating from the Upper Peninsula including the works of B.F. Child; famed National Geographic wildlife photographer George Shiras; Harold DuCharme; Tappan Gregory; William Harris and Edgar and Merta Lemon.
He will also show photographs from John M. Longyear, a wealthy industrialist, Congressman and amateur photographer, who was a lawyer, originally from Lansing, Michigan.
Deo said many of the photographs he will focus on were often sold as souvenirs or as stereographs and some were important enough to appear in Harpers Weekly.
Deo will also discuss and show the photographic work of the famous and infamous U.P. photographer “Black Bart” who learned his photographic trade while serving time at Marquette Prison after killing a man in Gogebic County during the last stage coach robbery east of the Mississippi in 1889.
“Black Bart” whose real name was Reimund Holzhey would use his photographic skills to photograph tourists in the elegant gardens surrounding the prison and while in prison would learn the fine art of hand coloring photographs.
Deo recently acquired the panoramic camera used by “Black Bart” to photograph scenes across the U.P after his release. Deo also will bring the first trail cam in the world perfected by George Shiras who took the first outdoor flash photograph of a deer in nature.
Deo said he was inspired to enter the field of photography by the tin typist at Greenfield Village who was also his next-door neighbor in Dearborn
“Greenfield Village was an important influence in my life,” he said.
