Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 24

Friday Photo: Esther Vance

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 82-88.2Esther Vance was Montana's first licensed aviatrix. She received her pilot’s license July 17, 1928, and was a founding member of the Ninety Nines, the country’s first organization for female pilots.

Earthquake Lake

On Sunday night August 16, 1959, actress Vicki Smith and a group of fellow Virginia City Players had the night off from performing at the Opera House. They were enjoying their rare free time by camping at nearby Ennis Lake. But there was something odd. Things had seemed off kilter all day. The group had camped here many times, but the lake had never been so still and glasslike. There were no crickets singing in the night, no bugs flitting over the water, not a sound except the strange mooing...

Fannie Sperry Steele

On a homestead beneath the picturesque Sleeping Giant in the Prickly Pear Valley, Fannie Sperry’s mother taught her to ride almost before she could walk. As a teenager, Fannie rode the roughest horses with the best of the men. At a time when most women still rode sidesaddle, and riding astride was considered coarse and unladylike, Fannie earned a reputation for courage and sticking power on the backs of the wildest broncos wearing a scandalous divided skirt. In the summer of 1903, sixteen-yea...

Friday Photo: Fort Peck Dam

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, Box 2 F11These men are building the head walls of Fort Peck Dam. The photo was taken on January 10, 1935, by a Glasgow photographer named Ellis.

The WCTU

The Montana Chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union or WCTU, formed in 1883. The national organization was primarily evangelical and protestant, and helped women become more involved in politics. Its purpose was to create a pure and sober world. Delegates from Butte, White Sulphur Springs, Helena, and Dillon met to organize the Montana chapter. The organization took up a number of causes and current social issues including labor, prostitution, public health, sanitation, and internat...

Elizabeth Lochrie

The U.S. Treasury Department, the State of Montana, the Ford Motor Company, New York Life Insurance Company, and the First National Bank of Seattle were among the distinguished patrons of Deer Lodge native Elizabeth Lochrie. Formally trained as an artist at the Pratt Institute in New York City, she graduated in 1911 and settled in Butte. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Lochrie established herself as a fine portrait artist. She also painted local rural and urban landscapes and scenes. During 1924...

Friday Photo: Beta Sigma Phi

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 74-37 61These women met in Helena for Montana's first state convention of Beta Sigma Phi in May of 1941.

They Lost a Claim

Hope Mommer tells a story in her biography Look Out West: Here Comes Robert Dempsey about an opportunity Robert Dempsey's little daughters lost. Dempsey was a well-known horse trader with a large extended family. The Dempseys arrived at Bannack at the height of the gold rush. They settled in a log cabin outside the gold camp while the hired hands lived in elkskin lodges, tending the livestock, and watching the miners in their frantic search for gold. The Dempsey daughters, ten-year-old Maggie...

Driving the Golden Spike

The most visible art in the Montana State Capitol attests to the importance of the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Driving the Golden Spike commemorates the great event that took place at Gold Creek on September 8, 1883, marking the completion of the last section of track across the vast stretches of the state.

Amédée Joullin, Driving the Golden Spike, 1903. Oil on canvas, 183" x 90". Grand StairwayWhile Governor Joseph Toole oversaw the subjects of the Capitol’s other art, the North...

Friday Photo: Charlie Russell

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 944-703Charlie Russell posed for this formal portrait in his Great Falls studio in 1912 while he was working on Lewis & Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole. The painting hangs in the senate chambers of the Montana State Capitol.