Al Smith's Neighborhood

An on-line collection of images by Seattle photographer Al Smith, made possible with support from the King County Landmarks & Heritage Commission.

Presented by MOHAI with support from the King County Landmarks & Heritage Commission

The Project and Process

Al Smith has enjoyed his avocation of photography for more than 60 years. During that time, Smith has created well over 100,000 photographs; images which document with great warmth and intimacy the everyday life in his neighborhood, the Central District of Seattle. A special projects grant from the King County Landmarks and Heritage Commission funded a unique collaboration between Mr. Smith, the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI), and the Black Heritage Society of Washington State (BHS).

Smith was able to select and store nearly 10,000 of his original negatives in archival polyethylene sleeves. These were sorted by broadly defined subject categories into 20 albums, resulting in 1000 pages of priceless pictures. 315 of these pages were contact printed and the resulting contact proof prints were placed in binders. These small prints were then studied carefully by a team of research informants, all of whom were longtime residents of Seattle's Black community.

Finally, information concerning 806 of the photographs was evaluated and recorded into a MS Access database. This database catalog is available for public research use via MOHAI and BHS; paper copies of it have also been provided to the King County Landmarks and Heritage Commission, King County Library System, Seattle Public Library, and the King County funded REM Photographic Survey Project. Although Al Smith retains the photographs and his rights to them, the project has created an extremely valuable finding aid and description of the photographic subjects: hundreds of named individuals, weddings, parades, parties, jazz clubs, church choirs, and more.

The Museum is thankful for the special projects grant from the King County Landmarks & Heritage Commission which supported this important work. MOHAI Curator of Photography and project manager Howard Giske offers additional thanks to many community volunteers for their assistance, particularly Dr. Spencer Shaw and Jacqueline Lawson of the BHS for their early support. Ms. Lawson subsequently led the research team which included Betty Connelly, Juanita Davis, Frances Demisse, Margaret Hardin, Dorothy Hilbert, Guela Johnson, Lillie Jones, Jeanne Jones, Charlena Mace, Muriel Minnis, John D. Peoples, Marjorie Sharper, Al Smith Jr., Marjorie Sotero, Mary Tanner, the late Leon Vaughn, Klara Winston, and of course, Al Smith himself. This team contributed 164 hours of work, looking carefully at hundreds of photographs, which inspired lively discussion as names, dates and events were recalled and verified. Angela Harvey, a student from Professor Daniel Boorstein's Public History Internship program at Seattle University provided 110 hours of volunteer administrative and database assistance.

A Brief Biography of The Photographer

In his easy-going way, and with genuine pride, Al Smith describes himself as a "real native son.... My parents lived at Fifth and Jefferson above a grocery store. I was born there April 4, 1916, brought into the world by a Japanese midwife.... I was baptized in the Catholic church across the street from that apartment and I've lived in the central part of Seattle all my life. " Smith's parents were from the West Indies, by way of Canada and England. They were married in St. James Cathedral in 1914, and lived in various places in central Seattle, finally settling into a small house near 14th and East Madison Street. Al Smith grew up in that house, attending Immaculate Conception Grade School and O'Dea High School. He didn't finish his senior year at O'Dea; he was young and restless. "I liked to hobo and I wanted to see the world," he recalls.

The country was in the depths of the Great Depression, but Smith found a job in the steward's department on the steamship Ruth Alexander. He worked up and down the west coast, but always came back to his homeport of Seattle and that little house at 14th and Madison. He then signed on with The American President's Line, taking as much shore leave as possible in Hawaii, Japan, China, and the Philippines. In his two years of work on the USS President Grant, Smith made many three-month tours around the Pacific, each beginning with the 10-day crossing to Japan.

Smith recalls, "When I was growing up, I thought it would be nice to be taking pictures; I always wanted a box camera, but there was no money to get one." So in 1937, on his last trip to the Orient, Al Smith bought his first serious camera. It was a German-made Ikoflex, and with his sophisticated new camera, he quickly began to make up for lost time. He learned photography from another enthusiast, a careful craftsman and skilled darkroom worker named Charles Johnson. Smith began to take his "hobby" seriously, although he claims he was "doing nothing special, just shooting pictures." He was ready, however, to put himself and his camera to work when Seattle's Jackson Street after hours jazz clubs offered photo opportunities and more during the World War II years.

A lot was happening for Al Smith then. In 1941, he began his "best job ever" at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, eventually becoming the lead man on a rigging gang. That same year, his "hobo days" over, Smith left the family home at 14th and Madison for a very special voyage, his marriage to Isabelle Donaldson. The first of their three children was born in 1942. He also got serious about his photography, selling his "On The Spot" photos by Al Smith to customers of the jazz nightclubs.

Smith took pictures of the patrons and musicians "in the clubs all along Jackson Street and in the concert and dance halls downtown." He would shoot one weekend and come back the next with the finished black and white prints, selling them for 50 cents or a dollar. He says "It was fascinating; I didn't get to know too many of the local musicians until later, but I was acquainted with the gamblers and policemen right away. I didn't take pictures of them though." Smith and his camera looked the other way while Seattle's infamous "tolerance policy" was in operation.

He says, "It was fun; I made a little money, but mostly I got to spend a little more on my hobby. And I loved the music, the jazz, even though I couldn't keep good time!" As Al Smith's reputation and talent developed, he outgrew the medium format Ikoflex and purchased a 4x5 Speed Graphic. This big camera was the standard tool of most professional press photographers. He says, "People took me more seriously with the Speed Graphic, I could cross police lines, get backstage, even walk right out onstage." He found himself face-to-face with the greats of jazz, people like Fats Waller, Lionel Hampton, Katherine Dunham and Duke Ellington. He also had the great good fortune to photograph such local luminaries as Deedee Hackett, Bumps Blackwell, Billy Tolles, Leon Vaughn and "Pops" Buford.

Al Smith continued to make first-rate photographs, documenting all aspects of life in his neighborhood. He carries on that work to this day.

Al Smith's talent with lens, film and flashbulb was equal to the skills of the jazz artists at their pianos, drums and trumpets. His eye was just as good as their music, and his photographs have the power to enthrall an audience now, just as their music did more than 50 years ago.

Smith says, " It surprises me why there weren't more people taking these pictures back then." The answer is simple: there was, and still is, only one person quite like Al Smith. Thanks to him, we may all share a lasting legacy of great images which document and celebrate an important, fascinating, special part of Seattle history: life as he lives it in Al Smith's neighborhood.