Schneider Museum of Art
Portrait of an unidentified Chinese
man by Peter Britt
Portrait of an unidentified Chinese
man by Peter Britt
The Vanishing (continued: Page 5)
Sojourners in A Golden Land
The Chinese Presence in Southern Oregon
Presented with the Southern Oregon Historical Society
Peter Britt: The Man Beyond the Camera
Peter Britt, namesake of the Britt Festivals summer concert series, was an extraordinary man of vision and accomplishment. His curiosity, motivation and experimental nature, matched with a keen business sense, allowed him to merge broad-ranging interests into a wide assortment of successful endeavors.
Britt is best known as a pioneer photographer. For nearly half a century, from the early 1850’s to 1900, he took remarkably expressive photographs of the people, activities, and landscapes in Southern Oregon. With his camera lens, he captured the diversity and detail of everyday life as the region grew from rugged mining district to prosperous commercial center. He left for future generations a rich pictorial history of a very real frontier community.
Arriving in Jacksonville, Oregon at the beginning of the Gold Rush, this 33 year-old Swiss immigrant tried his hand at prospecting and mule packing before seriously focusing on his photographic trade. In time, he branched into horticulture and wine making, beekeeping and meteorology. He became a rancher, horticulturalist, financier, and family man. When he died at age 86 in 1905, Britt was one of the wealthiest, best-known and most highly respected men in Southern Oregon.
It was early November 1852 when Britt arrived in Jacksonville pushing a two-wheeled cart full of photographic equipment. He selected a site on a hill with a magnificent view, now the site of the Britt Festivals, where he built a small log cabin for shelter. Presumably, he “made some pictures” early on, although the oldest known image of Jacksonville wasn’t taken until 1854. Like almost everyone else, Britt was stricken with gold fever and took his turn in the “diggings,” but soon recognized that mule-skinning was more of a sure thing and potentially quite profitable. Britt purchased a string of pack mules and for several years made the rigorous ten-day trek hauling foodstuff and mining tools from the California seaport of Crescent City. By 1856 Britt had made a sizeable grubstake and gave up this arduous occupation. He bought a new state-of-the-art camera in San Francisco and turned his energy back to his photographic trade.
Originally a portrait painter, Britt transferred his artist’s sensibilities to photography, a fledgling process which had just been announced by Louis Daguerre in France in 1839. It was no mean feat for someone living in such a geographically remote region to learn such newly invented techniques–to keep abreast of cutting edge advances made in Europe.
(More about Peter Britt on the next page)
The Vanishing Page 1 The Vanishing Page 2 (Rene Yung)
The Vanishing Page 3 (Hung Liu) The Vanishing Page 4 (More about Hung Liu)
The Vanishing Page 6 (More about Peter Britt)
