The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1873–1875 — 107 and 109 Michigan Street
A two-link chain: The succession at 107 and 109 Michigan Street is preserved entire in two advertisements. In 1873 Paul Beckwith's own directory notice at that address styles him "successor to A. VanSickle." In 1875 Albert McDonald advertised at the same address as successor to Paul Beckwith. Between the two lines stands the whole documented existence of A. VanSickle: no directory listing, biography, or newspaper item naming him as a South Bend photographer was found in the records searched beyond Beckwith's advertisement — he is a working photographer whose career survives only in the phrase that replaced him. Beckwith himself is nearly as spare in the record: the 1873 listing and advertisement, and the 1875 succession. The addresses, though, are firm, and they fix the trade's geography: the gallery rooms over Michigan Street, in the same block where McDonald would advertise for decades, were a standing premises handed from hand to hand — VanSickle to Beckwith to McDonald — in the early 1870s.
Sources:
- Indiana Album / Indiana Photographers Project, PersonData records for Paul Beckwith and Albert J. McDonald (indianaalbum.com) — Beckwith's 1873 advertisement, "successor to A. VanSickle," 107 & 109 Michigan; McDonald at the same address in 1875, "Successor to Paul Beckwith," as carried in the South Bend Area Genealogical Society's photographers list.
- Turner's South Bend Directory, 1873–74 and 1875 editions — the underlying directory record as cited in the project's notes.