Edward W. Smith photo album

A forest of workboat masts were a common sight in Newport Harbor, c. 1900.

Newport Harbor teemed with traffic; steamboats, ferries and ostentatious yachts– but these were of no interest to smith, who trained his camera only on schooners and workboats.

It was a treat to have my father show me his schooner pictures. They were in a huge album which he would place across his knees and leaf through, a page at a time, as I, sitting beside him, peered over his elbow. The album contained scores of four-by-five photographs reproduced on blue print paper in distinctive, unforgettable hues. ~ Edward W. Smith Jr. Preface to Workaday Schooners

In WorkaDay Schooners, Edward W. Smith, Jr. described his father — photographer (Edward W. Smith, Sr.) and his work:

A straight-laced Quaker, he was most prejudiced against the showy rich and would not photograph their yachts. Instead, he focused his camera on the commercial and fishing schooners which were everywhere and which were taken for granted.
The schooners were a rugged lot. Wood, hemp, cotton, and tar were used to build them, they represented the development of improvements made by generations of skilled shipbuilders.

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK: Click on any album page to view full page; then double click anywhere on that page to zoom in, drag mouse to navigate throughout the images. Right and left arrows advance to next or back to previous page.