These two photo albums were assembled by Blanche Parker, a young woman who lived in California and Michigan in the 1910s and ’20s, to capture, as she put it, her “life and friends, as told by snapshots, from fourteen on.” The albums track Parker’s travels around the United States and Canada and her career at two telephone companies as one of the era’s “weavers of speech” responsible for connecting callers. This electronic network required an expanded pool of workers, most of whom were women new to the labor force. These compendia of amateur photos and collaged materials evidence Parker’s creative verve and humor in capturing the era’s new media culture.
Gallery label from 2020