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| Title | Workers at the Bemis Bag Company, Seattle, ca. 1910 |
| Photographer | Moen, Carl Henry |
| Date | ca. 1910 |
| Caption | The Bemis Bag Company was founded in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858. By the early 20th century, the company operated eight bag factories in various parts of the United States, including Seattle, making burlap and cotton bags for grain, flour, feed and many other products. The company is still in the packaging business.
The Bemis Bag Company factory in Seattle was located in an industrial area just south of the downtown business district. The man on the right in this photo is Carl Henry Moen. The man on the left appears to be working with a printing plate which will be used to mark the cloth bags. |
| Notes | Carl Henry Moen was born in Seattle in 1892 to Norwegian immigrant parents. His family moved several times as he was growing up, but settled in Ballard when he was nine years old. He helped harvest and sell the produce, milk, and poultry his family raised, and also was a messenger for Western Union, dug clams, and worked for Bemis Bag Co. Eventually he left home and began a 30-year career as a sailor, crossing the Pacific Ocean over 200 times.
Moen bought his first camera in 1909; it was a 5x7 view camera that used glass plate negatives. A bedroom closet in the Moen house served as his darkroom. Most of his photos from this period are of his family and friends, showing scenes of life in Ballard in the early part of the 20th century. |
| Subjects | Factories--Washington (State)--Seattle; Laborers--Washington (State)--Seattle; Bemis Bro. Bag Company |
| Personal Names | Moen, Carl Henry |
| Places | United States--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Digital Collection | Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection |
| Image Number | 1980.6880.287 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact photos@mohai.org or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph. |
| Credit Line | Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved |
| Repository | Museum of History & Industry, Seattle (MOHAI) |
| Repository Collection | Moen Collection |
| Type | Image |
| Physical Description | 1 glass negative: b&w; 4 x 5 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from print made from original negative as a 3000 pixel TIFF image in 8-bit grayscale, resized to 640 pixels in the longest dimension and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop 6.0 and its JPEG quality measurement 3. |
