Before Color

Fenske Lake, MN, 1973

Ansel Adams took stunning photographs of the American west well before color film was invented and continued with black and white photography long after color film was available. His work had a strong influence on Tom, who learned photography using black and white film because it was less expensive than color and far easier to develop at home. Tom gradually switched to color in the 1970's.

Light is especially critical in black and white photography because there is no color to provide contrast. Before color, photographers used sky, water, sunlight or bright objects set against dark backgrounds or foregrounds to create dramatic scenes.

Andrea, Adirondack Lake, August 1970

Andrea and Washington Monument, April, 1971

C&O Canal, Great Falls, MD, 1971

Mirror Lake, WI, 1973

Mary with Dustin and Andrea, Fenske Lake, MN, 1973

Governor Dodge State Park, WI 1973

Andrea, Governor Dodge State Park, WI 1973

Dustin, Baraboo River, WI, 1974

Mary and Andy, Zion National Park, UT, 1975

Andrea, Dustin and Mary, Zion National Park, UT, 1975

Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO,, 1980

Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN, 1983

Mary, Watkins Glen, NY, 1992

Watkins Glen, NY, 1992

Celebrities

Marquette University is five miles from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM). In 1967, the combined student population of these schools was well over 15,000, providing an attractive audience for singers and authors, politicians and poets. As a photographer for the university newspaper, Tom could join the media for prime shots of the many celebrities who came to town.

The Scene was a hotel ballroom just down the street from Marquette that attracted some of the most important musical talent of the time; for example, Jimi Hendrix's legendary 1968 tour performed at The Scene. The venue was also a great place for local musicians to get recognized; Tracy Nelson, a singer from Madison, Wisconsin, launched a storied career with her performance at The Scene in 1965.

Tracy Nelson, Singer - 1965

In 1966 Betty Friedan spoke with a group of women at Marquette, discussing her book, The Feminine Mystique. The book examines "the problem that has no name" -- the prevailing expectation that women should find fulfillment as wives and mothers. That may have been true a generation or two earlier, when cooking and laundry involved as much manual labor by women as their husbands put into farming and tending livestock. But the post war economy produced refrigerators, electric stoves, and multiple kitchen appliances, along with washers, dryers and wrinkle resistant clothing. Women had a lot more time on their hands as their partners were away at the office all day.

Fired from her job when her second child was born, Betty Friedan turned to independent reporting. She surveyed her Smith College classmates at their 15 year reunion and found that most of them were disappointed with their situation; they were asking themselves "Is this all there is?". Freidan turned her survey into newspapers articles and eventually The Feminine Mystique - one of the most influential non-fiction books of the 20th century.

Betty Friedan at Marquette University in 1966

In 1964 Robert Kennedy, then the Attorney General of the US, gave the commencement address at Marquette University as he received an honorary degree. On August 15, 1965 he was a Senator from New York when he returned to Milwaukee for a testimonial dinner for lieutenant governor Patrick Lucy, delivering a well attended speech in the Marquette Gymnasium.

Bobby Kennedy, NY Senator - Aug 15, 1965

In 1967, the Marquette Law School hosted Byron White, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He gave a talk to a large audience at the University.

Byron White, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 1967

W. H. Auden, a prize-winning poet, grew up in Britain and moved to the US during WWII, then spent his later years moving between Europe and the US. He read his poetry to a large audience at Marquette in 1967, toward the end of a long and prolific writing career.

W H Auden, Poet - 1967

Fine Arts week was held every February at Marquette. In 1967, the Dave Brubeck quartet was coming to Milwaukee, so artists painted an advertisement on a construction barrier.

Dave Brubeck Quartet comes to Milwaukee, February 20, 1967

That same week a proposal was made to have Allen Ginsberg, a controversial poet, speak at the university. But his work was a bit too risqué for Marquette officials, who refused to approve Ginsberg's appearance. Enterprising supporters found an alternative venue, and on a cold winter night in February students made their displeasure known by marching five miles from Marquette to UWM to hear Allen Ginsberg read his poetry.

Gathering to walk to UWM to hear Allen Ginsberg, February 22, 1967

Allen Ginsberg, Poet, UWM Union Ballroom - February 22, 1967

As our time at Marquette drew to a close, euphoria gripped the campus after the Marquette basketball team's improbable victory in the semifinals of the 1967 National Invitational Tournament. Al McGuire was in his third year as coach and this was the first time his team had qualified for a national tournament, so reaching the final round was quite an accomplishment. The team lost the final game that year, but McGuire's teams competed in postseason playoffs every year for the next ten years, winning the NIT championship in 1970 and the NCAA championship in 1977. Al McGuire was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.

National Invitational Tournament semifinals victory celebration in downtown Milwaukee, March 20, 1967

Capturing the Moment

Tom Poppendieck showing a camera to a customer, Dark Room, 1964

In 1964 Tom started working at the Dark Room, a neighborhood camera store. This job taught him a lot about photography and provided access to excellent cameras.

Cameras at the time required manual adjustments to both focus and exposure, so it took a lot of skill to set up a camera, frame a scene, get the right lighting and focus, hold the camera motionless and capture a picture-perfect moment .

To keep costs down, Tom learned how to develop film and print his own pictures. This made it possible for him to improve his skill by taking a lot of photographs. He had a good eye for interesting moments and captured some great shots.

Boys Tech Faculty Picnic, Milwaukee, 1964

Sue Poppendieck, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, 1964

Ruth Poppendieck, Thanksgiving, 1964

Circus Parade, Milwaukee, July, 1965

Ducks on a canoe trip, 1966

Elmer and Ruth Poppendieck (Tom's parents) sewing a tent, 1966

Andrew and Fritzi Anderson (Tom's grandparents), 1966

Photographing Bubbles

Tom used photography in his senior science fair project, taking pictures of bubbles rising in various liquid viscosities. His project won first place in the science fair; part of his prize was a full tuition scholarship to Marquette University.

Equipment for Tom's Science Fair Project, 1964

Newspaper Photographer

Tom took his camera to college and became a photographer for the Marquette University newspaper, which gave him hundreds of additional hours of practice taking photographs and developing film. After an event he had about a day to deliver contact prints of each roll of film to the editors so they could select which photos to publish.

In addition to many interesting assignments, Tom liked to wander around and take pictures of nearby construction projects and the urban neighborhood surrounding the university. He learned to combine framing, timing, focus and light into some great photographs.

Joan of Arc chapel, originally built in Chasse, France in 1420, was reconstructed at Marquette in 1966.

An Interstate interchange was being built in the middle of campus in 1966.

Mary had to wear a skirt while on campus in 1966.

Marquette University Neighborhood, 1966

Youth Suffrage

Cherry blossoms at the Jefferson Memorial, 1971

In July of 1971 eleven million new voters became eligible to cast ballots in the US. Youth Suffrage was one of the more durable responses to a half year of intense anti-war protests starting in late 1969. Amid the calls to leave Vietnam, protesters who were old enough to be drafted insisted that they were old enough to vote.

The demonstrations did not immediately impact the war, but most politicians saw wisdom in lowering the voting age - sort of a consolation prize for the demonstrators.

In April of 1970, Congress passed a law extending the right to vote to 18 year olds, but eight months later the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution did not allow Congress to set the voting age in states. So Congress quickly passed a constitutional amendment, which was ratified in record time and became law in July, 1971. And just like that, there were eleven million newly enfranchised voters, just in time for the fall presidential election.

We lived in a Maryland suburb of Washington DC at the time, so Tom documented the demonstrations and protests.

War Moratorium March – November 15, 1969

Over 500,000 protesters overwhelmed Washington DC – similar to crowd that listened to Martin Luther King during the August 28, 1963 March On Washington.

War Moratorium March on Washington, November 15, 1969

University of Maryland Cambodia Demonstration – May 4, 1970

On May 4, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University while protesting the expansion of the Vietnam war to Cambodia. That same day, students at the University of Maryland held their fourth day of protests, occupying the administration building and blocking Route 1, a main artery next to campus. Just as the governor of Ohio had earlier in the day, the governor of Maryland called out the National Guard to clear the campus. As a graduate student at the University of Maryland, I was on campus at the time, and Tom had joined me to photograph events as they unfolded.

University of Maryland Cambodia Demonstration - May 4, 1970

I was waiting for Tom in the car with our two month old when the radio broadcast that campus was closed and everyone should leave immediately. The next thing I knew, National Guard vehicles were pulling into my small parking lot and one of the soldiers recommended that I leave immediately. Reluctant to leave Tom behind, I drove slowly out of the lot and made sure to get stopped by the traffic signal where I would turn away from campus. As I waited, I saw Tom running toward us, so I pulled up after the turn. Tom knew there was a bit of teargas on his clothes, so he threw his jacket into the trunk and jumped in the back seat, as far away from the baby as he could get. We opened all the windows and quickly drove away, leaving the teargas behind.

March on Washington – May 10, 1970

The following weekend, 100,000 people marched to the capital in Washington DC to protest the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings, including my sister Jane and her boyfriend. Tom took them to the event and captured more amazing photographs.

March on Washington - May 10, 1970

How did these Protests get Organized?

There was no Internet in 1970. There were no mobile phones, no personal computers, no word processors. Xerox copying machines were large and inaccessible; long distance calls were too expensive for students. So how did the anti-war demonstrations get organized?

Advertising an alternative event, Marquette Student Union, 1966

Every campus in the US had ways for students to communicate with each other - from setting up a table in the student center to staging an eye-catching demonstration, it was easy to broadcast messages. Cheap mimeograph machines were widely available and used to crank out copies of typed sheets and drawings. Every cause had a student activist group which joined with similar groups on other campuses to spread information around the country.

Editor-in-Chief, Gloria Babler checks Marquette Tribune printing press, 1965

Student newspapers were another source of communication. Tom was a photographer for the student newspaper at Marquette University, which documented campus activities from sports rallies to controversial speakers to marches and demonstrations. It was a ten page paper, written and edited entirely by students, and printed on a printing press every Wednesday and Friday throughout the school year.

Notice that most of the people in the pictures above are young. There's a good chance their parents suffered through a war 25 years earlier and gave it their full support. Watching their children criticize the Vietnam war was one of many contributors to the generation gap between boomers and their parents.