Peter E. Palmquist

Peter E. Palmquist (September 23, 1936 - January 13, 2003) was an autodidact photography historian and independent researcher/writer.

Palmquist was born into the working-class family of Carl Eric Palmquist and Blanche Lucille Palmquist in Oakland and lived as an adult in the logging community of Arcata, near the Oregon border. As a twelve-year-old, he taught himself photography. He began his career as an Army photographer during his military service stationed in Paris, where he worked for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) for which he photographed many heads of state. In addition he made portraits of many famous stage and screen actors. Married overseas, after his enlistment ended in 1959 he returned to California.Palmquist worked briefly as a photographer for the state government of California from 1959-1961, then took a job as the staff photographer for Humboldt State University and enrolled for undergraduate study. He graduated in 1965 with a B.A. in Art, but took no formal education in photography history.

He became interested in historic photographs in 1971 when he was given a set of old photographs of California by an antique store owner in McKinleyville, then continued to collect photographs, concentrating on the American West and California, with a special interest in Humboldt County, where he lived most of his life, and professional women photographers. Before long he started to write books and articles about his finds.

In 1983 Palmquist published his own book Carleton E. Watkins: Photographer of the American West accompanied by an exhibition that traveled to museums in Fort Worth, St. Louis and Boston. The show, with its inclusion of images of gardens, cityscapes and Spanish mission churches, prompted a reassessment of Watkins as more than a landscape photographer, and demonstrated Palmquist's capabilities as a researcher. His methodology was unusual in commencing from the photographic imagery rather than the written document, a practice compatible with his preference for obscure photographers he could afford to collect.

"Part of the collecting incentive was that photographs were generally cheap. A fine daguerreotype went for less than ten dollars, and many could be had for under three. Portrait photographs were seldom sold for more than fifty cents, and it was not uncommon to see large numbers of them as cheap as ten cents apiece. Tintypes were commonly fifty cents, while the lavish, Victorian-era, family albums were usually less than fifteen dollars. Outdoor photographs, especially town scenes, were another matter. These, along with stereographs, had already begun to interest local collectors. Nonetheless, it was unusual for a fine town view to fetch more than ten dollars, while twin-imaged stereographs rarely surpassed one dollar apiece. That is not to say that these artifacts were 'dirt' cheap during the 1970s, but they were most certainly a bargain by today's standards. It also helped that I was apparently the only person in Humboldt County that seriously collected old photographs."

This approach is enshrined in his Women in Photography Archive of more than 18,000 biographical files on female photographers; 2,000 books and 4,000 articles by and about women photographers; and approximately 8,300 vintage photographs many of them produced during the 19th century and taken by women. Many of them had their own photographic studios around the turn of the 20th century, and were previously unknown and unresearched, like Elizabeth Fleischmann, the first x-ray photographer in California who lost her life to radiation poisoning.

He participated in more than one hundred exhibitions of historical photography. initially, his lack of confidence in his own abilities as a writer caused him to enlist other authors for his first four books; Humboldt State University graduate student David Smith, and journalist Alann Steen, editor of Pacifica: Magazine of the Northcoast

"...acquainted with A. W. Ericson's photographs I decided that it was time to write a book, Fine California Views: The Photographs of A. W. Ericson (1975), that was my first attempt at narrative writing. Although the book was well received, my naïveté and lack of writing prowess was painfully evident."

Eventually his own texts were to include more than forty books and three-hundred and twenty articles, many on women photographers, and he compiled the bibliography for Naomi Rosenblum's important 1994 A History of Women Photographers. He was the founding editor of The Daguerreian Annual; past president of the National Stereoscopic Association; and founder and curator of the Women in Photography International Archive. He served as a consultant and researcher on such projects as Ken Burns' television documentary,[4] The West.

Palmquist remained on staff at the Humboldt University until retiring after 28 years in 1989. He supplemented his income by photographing weddings, more than 750 in all, most of them in Humboldt County.

Palmquist died on January 13, 2003 at Alameda County Medical Center Highland Hospital after three days in a coma after being struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking his dog in Emeryville, California. He was engaged to marry Pam Mendelsohn, his partner of 26 years, in April 2003. He had married Sally Forward of London, England, in 1957 while overseas and they had three daughters before their divorce. He was also survived by two brothers, John Frederic Palmquist and Carl Edward Palmquist.

The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research was founded by his partner Pam Mendelsohn. In 2005 the Fund commenced in providing financial support to independent researchers who are studying either photographers of the American West before 1900, or women photographers past and present.

Palmquist's archive of more than 150,000 photographs and research documents is housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut where it forms a cornerstone of its Western Americana Collection.

• Peter E. Palmquist Papers. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.