Ralph Raymond Hutchison (1887-1967) was raised on a farm near Endicott, Washington. As a professional photographer, he opened his first studio in Endicott circa 1910, and later also operated studios in LaCrosse, Pullman, and Moscow, ID. He moved to Pullman in 1925 and purchased the Artopho Studio, which he maintained as Hutchison's Studio until his death, with his son Jack continuing the business for several years afterwards. In 1957 he was president of the Professional Photographers of America, and was past president of the American Society of Photographers. In the course of Hutchison's work he was a photographer for the Pullman Herald and for the WSC yearbook, the Chinook, and he documented many town and campus events such as dances, parties, fraternity and sorority dances, banquets, and teas.
In March of 1981, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create a collection of study prints selected from 122 boxes containing approximately 200,000 negatives donated by Hutchison Studio. The result of the project is this collection of 1,600 photographic prints. Several sets of Hutchison's original alphabetical indexes are with the collection (due to condition these have not been digitized), but many of the negatives are not included in these, and many indexed items are actually missing. In addition, many of the negatives are undergoing "vinegar syndrome," in which the cellulose acetate negatives shrink and their emulsion layers crack and warp, leaving those negatives marginally viewable, but unreproducable. As a result, the entire collection was re-housed in 2011 and 2012. Those negatives with vinegar syndrome which had become damaged to the point of illegibility were discarded. The negatives with vinegar syndrome that were kept were re-housed in acid-free envelopes, as were the majority of the oldest negatives. The guides were removed from their three-ringed binders and foldered. The entire collection was re-housed into higher quality boxes.
The campus of Washington State University (including campus architecture, sporting events, campus activities, and administrators) is extensively documented, as is the city of Pullman and the surrounding Palouse communities. The collection records the changes on the campus of WSU and in rural communities between the 1920s and the 1970s. Agricultural photographs trace the shift from the use of horses in harvesting to modern combines. New technologies are also represented: the arrival of the first model T, the introduction of electric washers and dryers, people standing proudly by their new home freezers and air-conditioners. Though many of the photographs depict the town and farms of the Palouse region of southeastern Washington and northern Idaho, neighboring geographic areas are also represented. These include the Columbia River gorge, the heavily forested areas of northeastern Idaho and the semi-arid deserts of central Washington. In addition to the campus of WSU and wheat farming, there are scenes of pea processing, logging, shipping, and construction. Also included in this collection are pictures of many community members who used Hutchison as their senior, graduation, and passport photographer.
Included in this collection, in box 205, are a small number of negatives from Artopho Studios, which began in Pullman, circa 1906, and was purchased by R.R. Hutchison in 1925.
The collection consists of six series. When the collection was in the beginning stages of being re-housed, it came to light that part of the collection had been taken out of order and put into a second parallel series, though whether this was done at MASC or prior to the collection coming to MASC is unknown. Due to this, there are two main sequences of negatives, Series 1 and Series 2.
Series 1: Boxes 1-10 (00001-19927) primarily (but not exclusively) consists of images of the following: Palouse area scenes and events, Pullman buildings and events; portraits; WSU sports teams, WSU events and buildings; Greek houses, buildings, and faculty; Native Americans, and copies of papers such as marriage and birth certificates, discharge papers, and diplomas.
Series 2: Boxes 42-203 (2233-10070) contain the majority of Hutchison’s studio portraits. This includes sittings, weddings, and graduation photos. Boxes 204, 205, and 206 contain a variety of photos including local scenes. Most of the images in these three boxes are either undated and/or un-numbered.
Series 3: Box 207 contains the guides that were removed from the binders, prints primarily of local scenes, and a football photo scrapbook.
Series 4: Box 208 is unsorted nitrate film.
Series 5: Boxes 209-221 are lantern and glass slides. They are numbered 1-30002; Lantern Slides: 1A-209.
Series 6: Boxes 222-224 are prints from nitrate film, created in MASC, primarily circa 1981. Subjects of these prints include farming, WSU arterial photographs, WSU buildings, faculty, staff, and students. They also include photos of Pullman, surrounding area, advertisements, and farming scenes. Boxes 225-233 are print series. These prints include rolled film and prints; scenes from Pullman, WSU, and surrounding Palouse.
The collection consists of six series. When the collection was in the beginning stages of being re-housed, it came to light that part of the collection had been taken out of order and put into a second parallel series, though whether this was done at MASC or prior to the collection coming to MASC is unknown. Due to this, there are two main sequences of negatives; Series one is boxes 1-42, and series two is boxes 42-206. The third series is the binders of indexes; series four is nitrate negatives; series five is the glass and lantern slides; and finally the sixth series is the 1981 prints, broken up into three subseries.
Select images from this collection have been digitized and can be found in the online
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Hutchison Studio Photographs of Washington State University and Pullman, WA., 1910-1973 (PC 70)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The Hutchison Photography Studio donated its entire stock of negatives to the Washington State University Libraries in 1979.
In May of 2000, Nina Dietz and Trevor James Bond prepared this list of images from two drawers of subject file cards. From May 2011 to June 2012, Katrina Burch re-housed the entire collection.
Paul Gittings Sr. Photograph of Ralph Raymond Hutchison, 1950s
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Circa 1981, MASC created a 3"x5" card file of photographic images from the collection, but what they used to create that card file is unlcear. It may have been a list of planned or created prints; it may have been taken from some or all of the Hutchison guides held in Box 207; it may derive from something else entirely. In any case, the contents of card file are reproduced below. It should be noted that not everything in this listing is present, and the collection consists of many more items than are listed here. It should be noted that due to the complexity of the collection and Hutchison's numbering, the number here may refer to series one, two, five, or six.