Archives West Finding Aid
Table of Contents
Charles Wagner Willamette Valley flax industry photographs, 1941-1946
Overview of the Collection
- Photographer
- Wagner, Charles
- Title
- Charles Wagner Willamette Valley flax industry photographs
- Dates
- 1941-1946 (inclusive)19411946
- Quantity
- 0.36 cubic feet, (1 document case)
- Collection Number
- Org. Lot 452
- Summary
- Photographic prints produced by Charles Wagner, manager of the Oregon Insurance Rating Bureau (later the Pacific Fire Insurance Rating Bureau) to document the value of crops, facilities, and equipment associated with the flax industry in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The images include facilities in Canby, Corvallis, Dayton, Harrisburg, Irving, Monroe, Mount Angel, Santiam, Silverton, Springfield, St. Paul, and Washington County.
- Repository
-
Oregon Historical Society Research Library
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
97205
Telephone: 503-306-5240
Fax: 503-219-2040
libreference@ohs.org - Access Restrictions
-
Collection is open for research.
- Languages
- English
- Sponsor
- Finding aid prepared as part of the Northwest Archival Processing Initiative, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Historical NoteReturn to Top
In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, flax was grown at least by 1844. A flax oil mill was established at Salem in 1867, and the first flax-spinning mill was operating at Albany by the 1870s. An exhibit of Oregon flax won the bronze medal and certificate of merit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. By the 1890s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was touting Oregon and Washington as good flax-growing areas; however, the costly hand labor required to harvest and process flax, as well as competition with European producers, limited production.
In 1915, the state of Oregon built a flax processing plant at the state penitentiary in Salem, and this plant became known as the State Flax Industry. The state joined the Works Progress Administration to construct three cooperative processing plants at Springfield, Canby, and Mount Angel in 1936. Six processing plants and two spinning mills were operating in Oregon by 1941, and production reached its peak during World War II, with increased demand and reduced access to European flax. More processing plants were built to meet the demand, but the industry declined following the war.
Content DescriptionReturn to Top
Fifty-four photographic prints produced by Charles Wagner, manager of the Oregon Insurance Rating Bureau (later the Pacific Fire Insurance Rating Bureau), to document the value of crops, facilities, and equipment associated with the flax industry in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Subjects include harvested crops, storage and processing buildings, and harvesting and processing machinery. The images show the Willamette Valley flax industry at its height, and include facilities in Canby, Corvallis, Dayton, Harrisburg, Irving, Monroe, Mount Angel, Santiam, Silverton, Springfield, St. Paul, and Washington County. Two images are annotated with the dollar values of stored flax.
Use of the CollectionReturn to Top
Preferred Citation
Charles Wagner Willamette Valley flax industry photographs, Org. Lot 452, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Restrictions on Use
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
Administrative InformationReturn to Top
Arrangement
Photographs in the collection are arranged alphabetically by location except for one, which had no identified location and was placed at the end.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Dick F. Wagner, January 1988 (Lib. Acc. 18585, Photo Acc. 988D006)
Related Materials
Additional images of the flax industry at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library can be found in the Arthur M. Prentiss photographs, Org. Lot 301, which include images documenting flax growing and harvesting in Oregon in 1929, as well as the Oregon flax industry photographs collection, Org. Lot 453, which documents the state flax industry from 1912-1961.
A large collection of flax photographs, 1938-1959, is part of the in the Bioresource Engineering Department Photograph Collection (P 106) at the Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center in Corvallis, Oregon.
Bibliography
DeLoach, D.B., and Edward L. Rada. "The Oregon Fiber-flax Industry with Particular Reference to Marketing." Corvallis: Oregon State College, 1942.
Detailed Description of the CollectionReturn to Top
| Container(s) | Description | Dates | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Box | Folder | ||
| 1 | 1 | Canby | 1942 |
| 1 | 2 | Corvallis - furnace | 1941 |
| 1 | 3 | Dayton - construction, retting tanks, and flax storage | 1942 |
| 1 | 4 | Harrisburg Flax Growers Association - interior, exterior, and equipment | 1942-1943 |
| 1 | 5 | Irving - interior, exteriors, and conveyor to retting tanks | 1942 |
| 1 | 6 | Monroe - storage buildings and retting tanks | 1942 |
| 1 | 7 | Mount Angel - exterior, interior, equipment, storage buildings, flax drying, and stack of flax
Insurance valuation, $81,000, is hand-inked on the stack of flax.
|
1942 |
| 1 | 8 | Santiam Flax Growers Association - construction, exteriors, interior | 1943 |
| 1 | 9 | Silverton - exteriors, interiors, equipment, and flax storage | 1942 |
| 1 | 10 | Springfield - exterior, interior, equipment | 1942 |
| 1 | 11 | St. Paul - exteriors, interior, drying, and storage
Insurance valuation, $38,000, hand-inked on image showing stack of flax.
|
1941-1942 |
| 1 | 12 | Washington County Flax Growers - exteriors | 1943 |
| 1 | 13 | Portable flax puller (no location) | 1946 |
Names and SubjectsReturn to Top
Subject Terms
- Agricultural machinery--Oregon--Photographs
- Agricultural processing--Oregon--Photographs
- Flax industry--Oregon--Photographs
- Flax--Oregon--Photographs
- Storage facilities--Oregon--Photographs
- Textile fiber industry--Oregon--Photographs
Form or Genre Terms
- photographs
