Calvin F. Todd Photographs of Seattle, 1905-1930
Calvin F. Todd was a commercial photographer in Washington State from ca. 1905 to the 1930s. His business partners included Asahel Curtis and later the firm of Depue Morgan & Co. He was founder of the Pacific International Photographers Association, the Seattle Photographic Society and a member of the Bellevue Camera Club. He retired in 1952. The collection includes images of the University of Washington campus and scenes from Seattle including the waterfront, various buildings especially apartments, regrading activities, and the Pike Place Market.
Calvin F. Todd was born in Colorado. He began his photographic career as a young man working for a time as a news and commercial photographer in Mexico. He came to Washington in 1898. After arriving in Seattle in 1910, he worked with Asahel Curtis until World War I. During the war he served for a time in the Army's 30th Division. After the war he joined the photographic firm of Depue Morgan & Company as a partner in 1921. The studio was located at 1117 Pine St.
During his professional career, he was founder and board member of the Pacific International Photographers Association until it disbanded when state associations were formed. He was an honorary life member of the Professional Photographers of Washington and the Seattle Professional Photographers Association. He interests in other associations included the Bellevue Camera Club and the Mountaineers Club.
He was also a founder of the Seattle Photographic Society in 1933 which met monthly at the Y.M.C.A. on Madison St. This club was composed of both amateurs and professionals, offered photography instruction, darkroom facilities and the opportunity to display their work in various member exhibitions, in addition to various international photographic competitions.
Due to his accomplishments as a photographer, he was also a judge at the Seattle International Salon of Photography, the Central Washington International Salon and the Victoria International Exhibition of Photography. He had a one man show of old time Seattle photographs at the Frye Museum in the 1960s. He retired in 1952 and died in his Yarrow Point home in 1968.
About the Database
This database was produced as part of the Crossing Organizational Boundaries IMLS Grant. The results of this grant project are also showcased on the King County Snapshots web site. The information for Calvin F. Todd Collection was researched and prepared by the IMLS Grant, UW Libraries Special Collections Division, and Cataloging staff in 2002-2003. Not all the photographs from the collection were included in this database: the database consists of 247 digital images chosen from a group of approximately 460 photographic prints The photographic prints were scanned as a 3000 pixel TIFF image in 8-bit grayscale, resized to 640 pixels in width and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop 6.0 and its JPEG quality measurement 3. The scanned images were then linked with descriptive data using the UW Contentdm program. The original collection resides in the UW Libraries Special Collections Division as the Calvin F. Todd Collection no. 232.
