Background

Peter Palmquist was born on September 23, 1936, in Oakland, California. He was the son of Carl Eric and Blanche Lucille Palmquist. Peter and his parents moved to Ferndale in 1944.

Education

Peter Palmquist studied at the Williams Creek School and graduated from Ferndale High School in 1954. Besides, he attended Humboldt State University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1965, but he took no formal education in photography history.

Career

Peter Palmquist was a self-taught scholar and prolific historian of photography, especially western photography. He taught himself photography at age twelve, served five years as a photographer in the United States Army. Then he was a photographer for the state government of California from 1959-1961. After it, Peter worked for twenty-eight years as a photographer for Humboldt State University before retiring in 1989. Palmquist was an independent historian of photography from 1971 until he died in 2003.

In addition to his career as a photographer, Peter Palmquist was a writer. Among his books was With Nature's Children: Emma B. Freeman, 1880-1928, where Freeman, a free-spirited, flamboyant artist, and photographer, was known for her romanticized portraits of local Klamath and Hupa Indians, images that were often highly artistic but culturally inaccurate. Another Palmquist's 1980 book, Lawrence & Houseworth/Thomas Houseworth & Co, provides a history and catalog of the Houseworth company, a California dealer in optics that also sold stereoscopes and stereoscopic viewers, along with stereoscopic photographs of subjects in California and the American West. In the book, Shadowcatchers: A Directory of Women in California Photography before 1901, provides a comprehensive list of women active in photography in California in the nineteenth century. The book, Photographers: A Sourcebook for Historical Research, provides a framework and good advice for novices and experienced researchers alike. It includes instructional essays on the theory and techniques of regional research, along with a bibliography of directories of photographers. Palmquist's book, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, exhibits many of the virtues and some of the faults to be expected from a lifelong obsession, which it appears to have been. Also, Peter Palmquist was a founding editor of the Daguerreian Annual.

Achievements

• Peter Palmquist was well known as a writer and photographer. He was a professional photographer for more than 50 years. Also, as a writer, in 2001, Palmquist won the Denver Public Library's prestigious Caroline Bancroft Western History Prize for his book, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840-1865. Besides, Peter Palmquist was a founding editor of the Daguerreian Annual.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Pioneer Photographers of the Far West

    (This extraordinarily comprehensive, well-documented, biog...)

    2000
  • Giants in the Earth

    (The redwood tree has long been the national icon for natu...)

    2001
  • With nature's children 1977
  • Lawrence & Houseworth/Thomas Houseworth & Co 1980
  • Carleton E. Watkins 1983
  • Photographers of the Humboldt Bay Region 1870-1875 1986
  • A Bibliography of Writings by & About Women in Photography 1850-1950 1990
  • Shadowcatchers 1990
  • Photographers 2000

Views

Peter Palmquist's goal was to interpret each photograph to understand the times in which it was taken, the person who shot it, the people who appear in it. He was interested in weaving a vast tapestry of California's past through the lens of as many photographers as possible. As he explains it, the days of pioneer photography (roughly 1850 to 1920) coincided with many of the most dramatic historical periods in California - the gold rush, the logging of giant redwoods, the settling of the West with its brutal annihilation of Indian culture and the establishment of permanent cities. Old photographs tell that story, and each one is a key to the past, believed Palmquist.

Quotations: "I would rather spend my life working on the material than running around trying to get a doctorate. I let my work speak for itself."

Membership

• 

  National Stereoscopic Association , United States

Personality

Peter Palmquist was known for his quiet demeanor and a great sense of humor, and, especially, for his outrageous puns.

Quotes from others about the person

• Myriam Weisang Misrach: "The soft-spoken man was considered a leading photography expert by prominent auction houses and museums and served as an advisor on a plethora of books and exhibits, curated important shows."
  
  Martha A. Sandweiss: "Like the best of friends, Peter inspired through his generosity and support, like the best of teachers he inspired through example. What Peter cast into the world, through his books, and his spoken words will long reverberate with his friends and colleagues. He established new ways of pursuing the history of photography, and with his collections and research notes soon to be accessible at Yale, he will be speaking to and inspiring new generations of students and researchers forever."

Connections

Peter Palmquist married Sally Forward in 1957, but they divorced. They had three daughters, Alison, Elizabeth, and Anna.

Father:

Carl Eric Palmquist

Mother:

Blanche Lucille Palmquist

Wife:

Sally Forward

Sally Forward was Peter Palmquist's wife, but they divorced.

Daughter:

Alison Mary Lander

Daughter:

Elizabeth Palmquist-Cochran

Daughter:

Anna Louise May

Brother:

John Frederic Palmquist

Brother:

Carl Edward Palmquist