Kenneth Spencer Research Library

En esta ocasión es importante agradecer a las redes sociales que han sido de gran importancia para resolver el caso que se antepuso al equipo de la Biblioteca para la Investigación Kenneth Spencer. El blog, Facebook e Instagram hicieron posible que el álbum costarricense (MS K35) pueda quedarse y ser parte de la colección especial de la biblioteca. Como consecuencia, ahora los investigadores especializados en Latinoamérica, específicamente en Costa Rica, pueden acceder a la historia y/o al aspecto fotográfico del país.

Como se indicó en este mismo blog de la biblioteca, el miércoles 3 de abril de este mismo año, a su llegada se creía que el álbum costarricense documentaba el funeral del ex presidente costarricense Federico Tinoco Granados. La información con la que en ese momento se contaba era un pequeño documento incluido en el álbum, el cual indica el lugar de compra y el supuesto contenido: “Bot in lit El Erial Oct 1980. Reported to be pictures of funeral of Tinoco 1919” (Comprado en la librería El Erial Oct 1980. Se dice que se trata del funeral de Tinoco 1919). Después de un análisis detallado en las fotografías, y de encontrar pistas suficientes para descartar la posibilidad de tal personaje político, buscamos más información sobre de quién podría tratarse. Varios eran los posibles candidatos, pero al publicarse el blog de la biblioteca se halló la respuesta. Hoy en día se tiene la certeza de que las 23 fotografías en blanco y negro, tomadas por el fotógrafo Manuel Gómez Miralles, documentan la despedida oficial que se le da a Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro en enero de 1931. A quien también se le conoce como General don Bernardo y quien fue presidente de Costa Rica durante dos mandatos (1885 & 1886-1890). Entre sus muchas actividades políticas, Soto Alfaro fue el fundador de la Cruz Roja Costarricense como parte de sus preparativos ante la campaña militar invasiva del Presidente guatemalteco Justo Rufino Barrios (1885).

Las imágenes en el álbum, que han sido colocadas en un orden aparentemente cronológico, pueden verse divididas en dos categorías. Por un lado, las hay en un espacio público, donde vemos la conglomeración del pueblo y por otro se tiene el privado en donde vemos el orden militar que no fue abolido hasta 1948. El cuerpo militar en las imágenes está siempre presente, pero en espacios más privados y enfatizando la oficialidad del evento y por lo tanto de las fotografías. Con seguridad, si se tiene el conocimiento requerido, por las tomas directas de la cámara, algunos personajes políticos o del cuerpo militar podrían reconocerse. En cuanto a contenido, hasta este momento de lo único que se tiene certeza es de quién y que se celebra, pero no cabe duda de que hay mucho más que decir.

Debemos por lo tanto agradecer a Adrián Cortez Castro, quien, inmediatamente después de publicado el blog, nos proveyó el nombre de Soto Alfaro y la fecha de su fallecimiento. A la directora de la Biblioteca Nacional de Costa Rica Laura Rodríguez Amador, quien nos hizo el favor de confirmar por medio de la biblioteca digital la noticia publicada en Correo Nacional: diario de la mañana. A Rocío Fernández del Museo Nacional de Costa Rica y al especialista en la fotografía de Gómez Miralles, Gerardo Bolaños, quienes nos corroboraron la identidad del fallecido. Así mismo, nos proporcionaron la biografía de Gómez Miralles y del General don Bernardo. Gracias a la grata y amable cooperación de todos ellos el álbum MS K35 está formalmente disponible para todo aquel interesado de conocer más sobre la historia de Costa Rica.

We are happy to report that social media has been an important tool to help us solve the mystery of the Costa Rican album (MS K35). With the help of Facebook, Instagram, and the blog we have been able to share MS K35 housed in Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s special collections. Now, scholars dedicated to the study of Latin American, specifically Costa Rica, are able to access this contribution to the history and photographic material of the county.

As reported in our first blog entry (3 April 2019), tucked into the album was a note that read, “Bot in lib El Erial Oct 1980. Reported to be pictures of funeral of Federico Tinoco 1919.” However since Federico Tinoco, a former president of Costa Rica, died in exile in Paris in 1931, we knew this information couldn’t be correct. A detailed analysis of the album’s photos also suggested that it could not be the funeral of Tinoco’s brother, José, the Costa Rican Minister of War, who was murdered on August 10, 1919, so we continued a thorough search to find an accurate identity. There were many candidates to consider. Thankfully, a response to the previous blog entry provided us with the answer. We now know that the twenty-three black and white photographs taken by Manuel Gómez Miralles document the official memorial service of Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro in January 1931. Known as General Don Bernardo, this former two-term president of Costa Rica (1885 and 1886-1890) was also the founder of the Costa Rican Red Cross in 1885, as part of his preparations against a military invasion by Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios.

The album’s images, which appear to be arranged chronologically, are divided into two main categories. The first images depict a crowded public space and later ones depict the military, which was not abolished in Costa Rica until 1948. In these images the military is always present, emphasizing the official nature of the event and of the photographs themselves. If we closely examine the images, we might recognize certain politicians and military officials, as the photographer took direct shots, positioning the camera on the faces of the political officials and military groups. 

We would like to publicly acknowledge the assistance of Adrián Cortez Castro for his identification of Soto Alfaro (who had been one of our potential candidates). In response to the blog post, he was able to provide the exact date of Soto Alfaro’s death and a key reference to newspaper coverage of the funeral. We also wish to express our gratitude to Laura Rodríguez Amador, director of the National Library of Costa Rica, who provided a digital issue of the Correo Nacional: diario de la mañana to confirm Soto Alfaro’s identity. Additionally, we extend thanks to Rocío Fernández from the National Museum of Costa Rica, and Gerardo Bolaños, an expert on the photography of Gómez Miralles, who corroborated the identity of the deceased and provided the biographies of Gómez Miralles and General Don Bernardo. Thanks to the power of social media and the welcome and collegial cooperation of these individuals, the mystery of MS K35 is now solved. The album is available for research to anyone interested in learning more about Costa Rica and its history.

Indira García Varela
Student Assistant
Spanish- and Portguese-Language Materials Preservation Project

El álbum de fotografía costarricense, MS K35, que se presenta en este blog, es uno de los tantos documentos valiosos que el profesor emérito, Charles L. Stansifer, donó a Kenneth Spencer Research Library hace algunos años. Siendo parte del archivo y de la colección latinoamericana, el álbum acopia un valor doble. Por una parte, es un registro que ofrece evidencia histórica de Costa Rica y por otra, es un documento que identifica al país centroamericano como productor de fotografía y fotoperiodismo desde principios del siglo XX.

Sin embargo, hasta el momento no se tiene la certeza de quién es el personaje central de esta serie de fotografías. Si bien el álbum se compone de dieciséis imágenes que narran la ceremonia fúnebre de algún representante político, no hay evidencia directa que responda al quién pertenecen. Gracias a la presencia militar (imágenes 1 y 2), sobre todo a un pequeño escrito en el que se lee “Bot in lib El Erial Oct 1980. Reported to be pictures of funeral of Federico Tinoco 1919,” se tomó como un hecho que las fotografías documentan el funeral de Federico Tinoco Granados, presidente de Costa Rica entre 1917-1919. Si bien el final de la presidencia de Federico Tinoco se da junto a la muerte de su hermano, José Joaquín Tinoco Granados quien fue asesinado el 10 de agosto de 1919, su muerte sucede durante su exilio, en Paris. Así mismo, es a través de la fotografía #25992 (imagen 3) que se puede cuestionar si realmente lo que presenciamos como espectadores es el funeral de alguno de los Tinoco.

En tal imagen se puede apreciar el Templo de la Música, inaugurado el 24 de diciembre de 1920, un año después del asesinato. Por otro lado, en otra de las fotografías (ver imagen 4) se puede apreciar que lo que cubre el féretro del sujeto en cuestión es la bandera representante de la cruz roja.  A través de estos hechos y de revisar la historia se puede suponer que el celebrado es o Francisco Aguilar Barquero, que murió en octubre de 1924, o Juan Bautista Quirós Segura, fallecido en noviembre de 1934. Tanto Aguilar Barquero como Quirós Segura fueron presidentes provisionales después del golpe militar que terminó con la presidencia de Tinoco. Cabe también la posibilidad de que se trate de Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro quien en 1885 fue presidente provisional de Costa Rica, mismo año en el que ante la amenaza de guerra tuvo que fundarse la Cruz Roja Costarricense.

Al prestar atención a la arquitectura que aparece en la mayoría de las fotografías, se llega también a la conclusión de que el funeral puede tratarse de Manuel María de Peralta y Alfaro quien muere en agosto de 1930. Don Manuel es un importante personaje diplomático que, aunque fallece en París, su cuerpo fue trasladado a San José de Costa Rica para ser sepultado. Se dice que la ceremonia fúnebre tomó lugar en la Catedral Metropolitana, la cual podemos observar en siete de las imágenes (ver imágenes 5 y 6).

A pesar de desconocer para quién es la ceremonia, se sabe con certeza que las fotografías fueron tomadas por algún miembro del estudio de Manuel Gómez Miralles; si no es que por el mismo Miralles, considerado padre del fotoperiodismo costarricense. Además, Gómez Miralles fue uno de los fotógrafos encargados de fotografiar la vida política en Costa Rica y que utiliza la fotografía para dar a conocer la riqueza natural de su país.

Por estas razones, el álbum que hoy le pertenece a esta biblioteca, gracias al profesor emérito Stansifer, tiene un valor histórico y estético para los investigadores interesados en el país de Costa Rica. La riqueza histórica, política y artística no puede quedar paralizada por las incertidumbres que todavía permanecen. El álbum costarricense está disponible en la biblioteca Kenneth Spencer y esperando que algún investigador, al reconocer la arquitectura y alguno de los retratos más visibles (imagen 7), nos proporcione información relevante.

The Costa Rican photo album, MS K35, featured in this current blog post, represents one of the many valuable documents that Emeritus Professor Charles L. Stansifer donated some years ago to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. The photo album is housed among the library and archival material and is part of the Latin-American collections. The album has a double value: it offers historic evidence of Costa Rica and, simultaneously, offers insight into Costa Rican documentary photography and photojournalism in the early twentieth century.

Nevertheless, we are unsure of the identity of the central individual in the photographic series. The album contains sixteen photographs that record the funeral of a politician, but we are lacking precise information to identify the deceased. The military scenes in the album (images 1-2) and the presence of a small piece of paper inserted inside the album stating, “Bot in lib El Erial Oct 1980. Reported to be pictures of funeral of Federico Tinoco 1919,” led us to consider that the series documents the funeral of Federico Tinoco Granados, president of Costa Rica from 1917-1919. However, if we look closer at the images, especially at image 3, we realize that the funeral took place after the end of his presidency and that the funeral can be neither Tinoco’s nor that of his brother José Joaquin Tinoco Granados, who was murdered on August 10, 1919. The Templo de la Música, which opened on December 24, 1920, and which clearly appears in that image, eliminates José Tinoco Granados as a possibility. It is true that former president Federico Tinoco Granados died in 1931, years after the construction and opening of the Templo de la Música, but he passed away in Paris when he was in exile and his body wasn’t returned to Costa Rica until 1960. In addition to the facts presented by architectural and historical details, we see in another photograph that a Red Cross flag covers the coffin (image 4).

Other prospects include Francisco Aguilar Barquero, who passed away in October 1924, or Juan Bautista Quirós Segura, who perished in November 1934. Both Aguilar Barquero and Quirós Segura assumed the Costa Rican provisional presidency after Tinoco´s resignation and exile following his brother’s assassination. Another candidate is Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro, who was president of Costa Rica in 1885, the same year in which the Costa Rican Red Cross was established. Soto Alfaro died in January 1931. Given that the majority of the photographs display a particular architecture from the early 20^th century, it is also plausible that the funeral might be for Manuel María de Peralta y Alfaro, who died in August 1930. Don Manuel was an important diplomat who died in Paris, and whose body was transported to San José, Costa Rica, for burial. The funeral was conducted in the Catedral Metropolitana (images 5-6), a building that can be seen in seven of the photographs.

Despite our uncertainty about whose funeral is pictured, we know that the series of photographs was taken by a member of Manuel Gómez Miralles’s studio, if not Gómez Miralles himself. Gómez Miralles is considered the founder of Costa Rican photojournalism, and was committed to photographing Costa Rican political life and the natural beauty of his home country. 

Our discoveries to date confirm that the album, held in Kenneth Spencer Research Library thanks to the generosity of Emeritus Professor Stansifer, has historic and artistic significance for researchers interested in studying Costa Rica. We hope that readers of this blog post will recognize architectural clues or individuals featured in the photographs (image 7) to help us uncover new and relevant information, including the identity of the funeral’s central individual.

Indira García Varela
Student Assistant
Spanish- and Portguese-Language Materials Preservation Project

In order to make manuscript collections available to researchers, we have to describe what we have so they know whether it is of interest or not. Typically archival description provides information about what is in the collection itself, as well as some contextual information to aid researchers in understanding more about why materials may be in the collection—a biographical note or administrative history of the creator of the collection, for example, or information about how Spencer acquired the collection. This additional information may come from the collection itself—the creator handily leaves a copy of their resume in their files, or the organization has created annual reports that provide some historical information about them. It can also come from external sources, such as websites and materials the creator and/or donor provided the curator when transferring the collection to Spencer, including notes the curator took when discussing the collection with the donor.

Sometimes, particularly with photographic collections that have little to no textual material donated with them, processing staff have very little to go on when creating a finding aid to help researchers. Take, for example, a collection of cabinet cards and tintypes that had been assembled into a photograph album. These photographic images are beautiful, posed portraits of African Americans in late 19th-century eastern Kansas—but we have very little external information about these images. We’re not even sure how we acquired this collection, or the story behind the creation of the photograph album. If any portrait is identified with a name, it’s hidden on the back, and we haven’t taken the album page package apart, even if the album overall was disbound due to its severe deterioration.

Family group, circa 1890s? African American Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge.

In this kind of situation, we provide what information we can. We can describe simply at the collection-level, or we can attempt to describe at the file or individual item level, but those descriptions will necessarily be generic: “Tintype of a soldier in a Civil War-era uniform.”

Tintype of a soldier in a Civil War-era
uniform, circa 1880-1900.
African American Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge

We can also provide rough date estimates for when the portraits were made, based upon the clothing worn by the sitters and upon the photographic processes used.

This woman’s overskirt—draped at the back of her dress
helping to create a bustle—tightly-fitted sleeves with cuffs,
and fitted basque-type bodice all indicate her photograph
was probably taken around the mid-1880s. African American Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge.

Photographers’ names, often provided on the bottom of cabinet cards and cartes de visite—think about watermarks on professionally-made digital photographs in the 21st century—also provide clues about where and when a collection is from. The photographers found in this collection mostly appear to come from Topeka, Kansas, with some also from Atchison, Lawrence, and perhaps other towns in the eastern part of the state.

The text under the image indicates it was taken by F. F. Mettner,
photographer of Lawrence, Kansas. Also notice the girl’s giant
leg o’mutton sleeves; this style was quite popular in the mid-1890s.
African American Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge.

There are many decisions that go into processing a collection like this: Do we take apart the individual album pages to see if we can find more identifying information? Do we leave as is because this was how the images were intended to be seen (and who knows if anybody wrote anything on the back anyway)? Do we describe at a detailed level when we cannot provide names, or are we content with providing a simple collection-level description and hope that researchers are able to realize there may be a treasure trove from that collective description?

Who is this gentleman? If we knew his name,
what other information could it provide?
African American Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge.

No matter what we choose to do, archival description cannot capture the beauty of the women’s and children’s dresses and men’s suits—the sitters no doubt wearing their Sunday finest—the personalities that peek through even these stiffly posed studio portraits, the stories that may be hiding in the pictures themselves.

Portrait of an unknown woman, circa 1880-1900.
Marcella is especially fond of this photograph.
African American Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 531. Click image to enlarge.

If you have any information about any of these images, or others in the collection, we would be happy to add that information to the finding aid. To request to use the collection, contact Public Services staff at ksrlref@ku.edu. To provide more information about the collection, please also contact our African American Experience field archivist, Deborah Dandridge, at ddandrid@ku.edu.

Marcella Huggard
Manuscript Processing Coordinator