The primary (and best) reason to digitize museum collections is to share them with the public on the web. PMM’s photo archives staff has been hard at work for the past year getting to know Kosti Ruohomaa’s photographs through this process. Since he worked under the umbrella of a photo agency for most of his life (Black Star Publishing in Manhattan), the collection is most meaningfully grouped by his professional assignments: those he was given and those he conceived himself and pitched to them. It’s interesting to observe that many of the “self-assignments” were studies of particular aesthetic and cultural themes which the photographer circled back to repeatedly throughout his career.
Beginning in January of 2021, we’ll use this page to showcase a few new assignments each month. Please check back here to further explore the captivating work of this iconic Maine talent. Click on any of the thumbnails below to open that group of images in our online database.
L.L. Bean
Leon Leonwood Bean was an earthy, dynamic character whose runaway entrepreneurial success was merely an extension of his life and personality. The man and his business were Maine icons, ideal subjects for a Kosti Ruohomaa photographic tribute.
Painting Bee
“On Monday, August 25th [1952], the city of Eastport, Maine closed its shops and painted the town red— and green, yellow and buff.”
Washington, Maine Town Meeting
The tiny working-class town of Washington, Maine lies in northern Knox County. It was incorporated as Putnam in 1811; residents adopted its permanent name in 1825. When Ruohomaa attended this town meeting in 1948, roughly 700 people lived here.
Potato Harvest
In the late 1950s when the photographer visited Aroostook County in northeastern Maine, its potato production was still the strongest in the US, with annual yields above 60 million bushels.
Rehabilitation Farm
Malcolm Stannard grew up on a Connecticut farm, but left his agrarian roots as a young man to pursue a maritime career. At 21, he bought and skippered a four-masted schooner with which he worked the coal trade in the West Indies.
School Teacher
Doris MacDougal began her career in education at the start of the Depression. The choice was practical, since school teachers at the time could earn a degree in only two years.
Maine Guide at Rangeley
Ed DeMar was the quintessential Maine Guide. When Ruohomaa photographed him and some of his colleagues in 1958, DeMar was a veteran of 32 years. Being a Rangeley Lakes native and a lifelong sportsman, his knowledge of the area and its fauna was instinctive.
Log Drive 1954
In the early days of interior commercial logging, passage by river was the sole means of moving timber from stump to sawmill.