Joseph K. Sosnowski: the west side's photographer

1899–1921 — Mason & Sosnowski, the Star Photo Co., and the Orpheum Studio

The Polish west side's camera: Joseph K. Sosnowski — the name also prints Sosnoski in the record — is the photographer of the Polish west side, the city's great immigrant quarter, at the turn of the century. The directory course the project harvested runs: Mason & Sosnowski in 1899, at 307 South Michigan Street, in partnership with L. D. Mason (the firm is carried in Hibberd's directory of 1899–1900); the Star Photo Co. in 1901, at 232 South Michigan; Sosnowski under his own name in 1905, at 129 South St. Joseph Street; and the Orpheum Studio in 1914 and again in 1921, at 224 North Michigan, in the Orpheum Theatre Building — a studio inside a theatre, taking the portraits of the vaudeville-era city. One listing crosses the line: in 1910 he appears in Mishawaka, that city's fact, printed as the boundary line it is. A west-side portraitist's work is the visual record of the parish neighborhoods — first communions, weddings, lodge portraits, the photographs sent back to Poland and the ones kept in the album — and Sosnowski held that trade, in four successive firms and rooms, for at least twenty-two years of listings, from the last year of one century well into the next.

Sources:

1. Indiana Album / Indiana Photographers Project, PersonData record for Joseph K. Sosnowski (indianaalbum.com) — Mason & Sosnowski, 1899, 307 S. Michigan (Hibberd's Directory, 1899–1900); Star Photo Co., 1901, 232 S. Michigan; own name, 1905, 129 S. St. Joseph; Mishawaka listing, 1910; Orpheum Studio, 1914 and 1921, 224 N. Michigan, Orpheum Theatre Building.
2. South Bend Area Genealogical Society, "South Bend and Mishawaka Photographers, 1863–1921" — the list that frames the run, as harvested by the project.