Charles Wagner Willamette Valley flax industry photographs
Scope and Contents
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.
Dates
- Creation: 1941-1946
Creator
- Wagner, Charles (Photographer, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing 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.
Historical note
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.
Extent
0.36 Cubic Feet (1 document case)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
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.
Arrangement
Photographs in the collection are arranged alphabetically by location except for one, which had no identified location and was placed at the end.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Dick F. Wagner, January 1988 (Lib. Acc. 18585, Photo Acc. 988D006)
Bibliography
Genre / Form
Topical
- Title
- Guide to the Charles Wagner Willamette Valley flax industry photographs
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Sharon M. Howe
- Date
- 2001; revised 2023
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is written in English.
- Sponsor
- Finding aid prepared as part of the Northwest Archival Processing Initiative, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Revision Statements
- May 2007: Corrected controlled terms, MKF.
- 2015: Revised to reflect updates to best practices.
- 2023-08-25: Revised to conform to current standard.
Repository Details
Part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library Repository
1200 SW Park Ave.
Portland OR 97205 United States
5033065204
5033065240
libreference@ohs.org