Standing Up For Schools

THANKS TO Gilbert Costello and his namesake collection at the Seattle Public Library, this portrait of the Central School faculty not only survives but also is annotated on its flip side. At the center is the official stamp of the "photographic artist," Theo Peiser, who arrived in Seattle, by most descriptions, in 1883, which is also the year that this view was most likely recorded. The handwritten notes explain that here are the Central teachers at the building's opening. (Actually, this was the second Central School building.)

The statuesque long coat on the left is Professor Edward Sturgis Ingraham, who arrived in Seattle in 1875 and, 10 days later, became the head of the community's schools. In 1883 he completed his first year as the first superintendent of Seattle Public Schools and got married. The 31-year-old professor (taught for the most part in the "school of experience") and Myra Carr, 24, chose the eighth of April for their wedding because it was for both of them also their birthdays. One month later, Ingraham marched his students and faculty three blocks east up Madison Street from the original Central School on Third Avenue to this new and then largest school in Washington Territory. Behind that front door are 12 classrooms, each 28 by 35 feet.

Aside from Ingraham and the janitor on the far right, the scene shows 10 teachers.

In 1888 Ingraham left Seattle schools to climb mountains, train Boy Scouts and, with Myra, raise four children. One of his students, University of Washington history professor Edmond Meany, claimed that Ingraham served his 13 years in the city schools without being late or absent for any cause for a single day.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.