Jun

Cranbrook Behind the Scenes: My Senior May Experience

Ms. Rice warned me that the first week of my Senior May Project would be hectic and slightly crazy, and it definitely was, but in the best possible way! Being a lifer at Cranbrook, I have learned a lot about our amazing campus over the years, but nothing could have prepared me for the intensely interesting and extremely entertaining Senior May opportunity I have encountered at the Center for Collections and Research.

Riya Batra on set in Saarinen House for the Susan Saarinen interview. Photo by Nina Blomfield.

I joined the department in the week prior to A House Party, the Center’s annual fundraiser, this year honoring Loja Saarinen. Within minutes I was fully immersed into the event preparation. From unboxing the beautifully printed mugs to sitting in on engaging interviews, I was able to experience and assist in a variety of tasks that made me feel like I was actually contributing, even though my contribution was likely quite small in the grand scheme of things.

Riya as Susan Saarinen’s camera stand-in. Photo by Nina Blomfield.

One moment I will never forget was driving Susan Saarinen back to her hotel, after her interview for the film, and seeing an actual dress created by her cherished grandmother Loja. Where else in the world would I ever get to experience something like this?

Leslie Mio packs up the dress by Loja Saarinen. Photo by Riya Batra.

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Feb

Photographer Jack Kausch and Cranbrook

In many of the posts we put up on Facebook or on the Kitchen Sink, the credit line “Photographer Jack Kausch” appears. Since he took so many iconic images of Cranbrook’s people and places in the second half of the twentieth century, I’d like to introduce you to Jack Kausch himself.

Jack Kausch at work developing photographs while at Cranbrook School, *The Brook* 1947. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

John William (Jack) Kausch was born in 1929, in Queens, New York. His family moved to Detroit shortly after he was born. Jack’s interest in photography began at age eight, when his mother gave him a camera and dark room set. He earned a scholarship to attend Cranbrook School for Boys, graduating in 1947. While a student at Cranbrook, he became a photographer for The Crane student newspaper and The Brook yearbook.

Jack Kausch’s Senior entry in *The Brook*, 1947. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Jack went on to attend the University of Michigan. The Korean War interrupted his studies, and he joined the Air National Guard. Stationed on a base in New England, he serviced radar equipment and handled the base’s photography lab. When the war ended, the G.I. bill enabled him to return to the University of Michigan. He helped his mother run a construction firm while he attended night school, earning a bachelor’s degree in Physics in 1956.

In September 1957, Jack married Elizabeth (Betsy) Drake. He then took a job with General Motors Photographic in 1960, where he worked for the next seventeen years. During this time, he returned to the University of Michigan to earn a Master’s in Business Administration. He opened Jack Kausch Photography in 1976 in Birmingham, Michigan. It was around this time he returned to Cranbrook to again take photographs for various Cranbrook publications and events.

Shortly after his death in 2002, Jack was posthumously awarded the 2001-2002 Birmingham Bloomfield Cultural Arts Award’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009, an exhibit about his life and work, Jack Kausch, A Photographer’s Retrospective, was presented by the Birmingham Museum.

I thought I would share some of my favorite Kausch photographs of Cranbrook’s people and places:

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2 years ago Short URL 6 Comments

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Sep

Photo Friday: Thornlea Studio

In this moody photograph by Jack Kausch, we see Henry Scripps Booth with his plants, prints, antiques, and drawings in the Thornlea Studio alcove.

Henry Scripps Booth at his desk in the Thornlea Studio alcove. October 1981. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives/Jack Kausch Photographic Collection.

Henry designed Thornlea Studio as a working retreat behind his house, Thornlea, off Cranbrook Road. Completed to his own designs in 1937, here Henry worked on architectural projects for himself, for Cranbrook (like redesigning the Art Museum bathrooms and building the Cranbrook House gatehouse), and for friends and clients. He also used the studio as a place to write and read next to the cozy fireplace or beautiful expanses of windows.

Henry built this studio in 1937; in 1988 it was converted into the home of the Cranbrook Archives. Richard G. Askew, photographer, 1940. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

After Henry’s death in 1988, the studio was converted into a home for the Cranbrook Archives. The Archives were begun in part through Henry’s efforts sifting and organizing the Booth family papers and ephemera held at Cranbrook House. Relocated from the (very wet) basement and (very hot) attic of Cranbrook House, the Archives and its professional staff moved into Thornlea Studio. The most significant change to the building involved converting the Studio garage into a vault, with the reading room occupying the first floor drafting room and the alcove and offices on the second floor.

In 2012, the Archives offices, Reading Room, and certain parts of the collections were moved into the lower level of Cranbrook Art Museum. This summer, with the help of former Art Museum Preparator Mark Baker and Cranbrook Capital Projects, we moved again, into the Collections Wing.

Gina and Laura in Reading Room Sept 11 18

The new Archives Reading Room in the Cranbrook Art Museum Collections Wing. PD Rearick, photographer, 2018. Courtesy of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

In our beautiful new Archives Reading Room, we’ve hung a 1922 portrait of Henry Booth to commemorate his efforts to create and steward Cranbrook Archives. To visit our new Reading Room, see treasures from the Archives, and hear new research from five patrons of the Archives, come to our Open Archives event this Sunday from 1 to 5pm (short talks begin at 3pm). More information is available on our website.

Register online or at the door for this free event, and join us Sunday to celebrate Cranbrook Archives and see the new Reading Room!

–Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, 2016-2019, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Editors Note: The Archives is also excited to announce new hours! We will be open on Tuesday to Friday 11 to 5pm and the second Saturday of each month, 11 to 5pm.

5 years ago Short URL Comments

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Sep

Photo Friday: Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

In October 2014, archivist Cheri Gay, wrote a blog on the pet cemetery at Thornlea Studio and the love the Booth family had for their animals.

In the blog, Cheri states, “When Henry was growing up, the Booth family had beagles, Prince and Mike, and a great dane, Ginger. Mike, according to Henry, ‘… loved having a fuss made over him, one time going so far as being pushed around in a doll carriage while wearing a canvas hat.’ Oh to have a photograph of that!”

On this Photo Friday, the Cranbrook Kitchen Sink is proud to present:

Mike the beagle, being pushed in a doll stroller... wearing a canvas hat!

Mike the beagle, being pushed around in a doll carriage… while wearing a canvas hat!

– Leslie S. Mio, Assistant Registrar

7 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

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May

It’s a New Collection!

The Archives to Launch Our Poster Collection Online!

Over the coming summer, Cranbrook Archives will release a brand new collection into its online digital database! While building our digital archive is a perpetual process, we are working steadily to upload images and manuscripts so that you, our remote users, can browse and search through our collections no matter where you live. This summer we will be celebrating a new addition: the Cranbrook Poster Collection!

Over the past eight months, my colleague, Laura MacNewman, and I collaborated to upload this collection for online access. The posters date back to the early 1900s with topics covering the scope of the entire Cranbrook Educational Community, emphasizing exhibitions from the Academy of Art and the Institute of Science, and theatrical performances from Cranbrook Kingswood Schools, St. Dunstan’s Guild, and the Summer Theatre.

Cranbrook Institute of Science poster, n.d. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

We created nineteen different series for the Poster Collection based on locations or departments on campus. We identified nearly 500 unique posters in our collection, and each one was given a distinct identifying number. Once the unique identifiers were established, we merged all the various poster inventories into one master inventory spreadsheet, and arranged them in chronological order by series.

The next step was sorting through the physical posters folder by folder in order to take a reference photograph of each one for the database, record their dimensions, and describe them in the master inventory spreadsheet. This was the longest stage of the process, lasting several weeks. After the data was entered into the spreadsheet, we renamed the individual images to match the posters’ unique identifiers in order to match the photograph.

Exhibition poster, 1973. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

While every step has been a learning process, my favorite part was working in Thornlea Studio and physically handling the poster collection for measurements and photographs. Laura and I were able to take a previously unorganized collection and make it discoverable online, which was rewarding and gave me a sense of accomplishment. I loved the huge diversity of the posters, too. Not only were they historically valuable, they were also aesthetically stunning. I can’t wait for the collection to be released for everyone to enjoy!

– Danae Dracht, Archives Assistant

Editor’s Note: Thank you Danae and Laura for your hard work on this project! Congratulations also to Danae who recently graduated from Wayne State University’s School of Library Science! We wish you all the best as you embark on the next journey of your archival career.

7 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

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Oct

Object in Focus: Gone but Not Forgotten

Grave of Buddy. Photo taken by Cheri Gay.

Taking a stroll one day on the grounds of the Thornlea Studio (where Cranbrook Archives was previously housed) I was startled to come across small tombstones, almost buried in the grass. What were these, I wondered? Seeing the names, I immediately understood: Buddy, Homer, Perky, Heinie, Fellow, Ricky, Zorah—a pet cemetery, which had seen better days.

Thornlea Studio was the artistic lair of Henry Scripps Booth, who designed and placed the building across the wide expanse of lawn from his home Thornlea. The family actually lived in the studio in 1949 when “… our daughter Melinda was a student at Kingswood. She was embarrassed by our living in “such a big house” and prevailed on her mother to close the house and move across the lawn to the Studio.”

The Henry Scripps Booth and Carolyn Farr Booth Papers document six dogs, almost all black and tan German shepherds. Receipts from Sheldon Granite Co. in Detroit reveal they made the monuments for Heinie, Perky and the lyrically named, Homer the Wanderer. A 1961 notebook paper receipt identifies Albert Leipold, of Birmingham, as the stone carver for Fellow’s monument for $40.

Henry Scripps Booth with Mike, 1912. Cranbrook Archives.

Buddy at Thornlea, 1929. Cranbrook Archives.

When Henry was growing up, the Booth family had beagles, Prince and Mike, and a great Dane, Ginger. Mike, according to Henry, “ … loved having a fuss made over him, one time going so far as being pushed around in a doll carriage while wearing a canvas hat.” Oh to have a photograph of that! When Henry had his own family, black and tan German shepherds predominated.

Henry’s photo albums, called Pleasures of Life, include 17 different dogs, though not all are his. His hand-written captions under the photographs always give the dog’s name followed by (dog) in case there’s any doubt, for example, in a photo of Cynthia and Curlytail, who is who.

Though the grounds and building of the Thornlea Studio are maintained, unfortunately that care doesn’t extend to Henry Booth’s lovingly buried companions. It’s a project waiting to happen.