Photographer to the Star

Transcript Go to Notes | Lifeline | Links | Transcript

UPDATE Oct 2, 2020:   The full transcript has now been added below. Due to some recording issues, the audio version of today’s podcast episode wound up with some sections left “on the cutting room floor”.  However, I’ve included everything that was supposed to be in the audio in the written version below. A little bonus to thank you all for your patience!

Notes

Click here to see more photos by Mabel Sykes and other materials about her life, including her work with Rudolph Valentino are covered in Jim Craig over on his blog   Under Every Tombstone. Many thanks to Jim for sharing his treasure trove about Mabel with everyone on his blog!

In addition, here’s that $1 photo I found in antique store that led me on the hunt to find  the photographer Mabel Sykes, wherever she was.

Also, here are few more articles about her and/or ads for her studio. Note that all the articles will take you to the appropriate online newspaper article where I found them.  All the sites require an account to read the full story, but you can get a trial subscription to start if you don’t have one.

One of the many articles about Mabel Sykes’s divorce from Melvin Sykes (Jim Craig including many more in his blog post.)

And here’s the one of Melvin in a hat, with his next wife, Margaret Sykes:

Sample Society photos published in Chicago newspapers, taken by Mabel Sykes:

But photos by Mabel Sykes were also used to show the people in more serious news stories in the newspapers:

Mabel got the rights to the studio she had run with Melvin Sykes after their divorce, and advertises quite often in the newspapers:

Melvin, though, opens a competing Sykes studio.  In 1917, after Mabel Sykes remarries (to Alfred Barsanti), Melvin runs this ad in the newspapers.  However, Mrs. Mabel Barsanti is still running the Mabel Sykes studio, so Melvin wasn’t necessarily the only Sykes in town! [Update: after I recorded the episode, I realized that Mabel’s studio suffered fire damage in July 1917, so it’s possible that it took her a while to re-open, and maybe that’s when Melvin started running this ad. But he runs it a lot.]

But it is interesting that often their studio ads wind up side-by-side on occasion, both in the newspapers …

and in the Chicago city directory Photographer listings:

But even then, Mabel takes out larger ads in the directories: she’s the Sykes that people see at the top of their “yellow pages” type business listings:

Mabel Sykes was so popular that she gets featured in one of those ‘then an now’ page in the newspaper, celebrating local business people and showing them when they were babies:

Lifeline

Recommended Links

• Ancestry.com (census records, city directories, and more; paid account required – Visit
• Chris Culy’s blog – Visit
• Family Search website has U.S. Federal Census and more; free account required – Visit
• Geneologybank.com has a selection of digitized newspapers from the United States; paid account required – Visit
• Newspapers.com has a selection of digitized newspapers from the United States; paid account required – Visit
• Newspaperarchives.com has a selection of digitized newspapers from the United States; paid account required – Visit
  
• Under Every Tombstone blog by Jim Craig (Mabel Sykes Post)- Visit
  
• Peter Palmquist database at the Yale Beinecke Library – Visit

Transcript

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we meet Mabel Sykes, who in the early 20th century, found success as noted  Chicago photographer. She  took photos of everyday folks as well as the rich and famous. That includes one Hollywood star who dubbed her his favorite photograher of all time.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today I’m going to introduce you to both an interesting photographer and an interesting website that is a fantastic resource about that photographer.

But before I get to that, I want to talk abuot how I first came across the work of a photographer named Mabel Sykes.

Back in the “before time”, when it was possible to spend time digging through boxes of photos in antique stores, many was the weekend that my husband, Chris, and I spent time looking for examples of works by our early women artistan photographers.

As I mentioned back in episode 38, to do this hunting at an antique store, we carry along our “Pocket Palmquist”, which is to say our portable version of a database of women photographers’ names that we’ve done research on, combined with the rest of Peter Palmquist’s list of women photographers. THe combined list is over 20,000 names.

So, normally, it’s a little slow going – unless there’s a woman’s name, or a “Miss ” or “Mrs” or “Misses” indicated on the photo.

If we find a match with a name on a photo – and it’s not outrageously expensive – we’ll buy it.

Normally, we will invest in buying something if we find a match to a name in the database, but our one rule is we don’t buy a photo that has only a name but no location. We’ve gotten burned in the past doing that, so we are a little more cautious these days.

But at the end of one long session in an anqiute store somewhere in the U.S., I got down to the bottom of the last box and pulled out a beautiful head and shoulders shot of a young boy in a suit. It was printed on a piece of paper about 5×7, printed so as to suggest a mat around the edges. As I stared at the fancy script underneath the photo, trying to make it out, I realized it spelled out the name of the photographer, and it was a woman’s name, “Mabel Sykes.” But no address.

But … it was only $1.

So, I thought for sure that it was worth $1 to see if we could find a Mabel Sykes on Ancestry.com who had been a photographer somewhere in the world.

And our “Pocket Palmquist” revealed that Peter had found a Mabel Sykes in California.

So, we boldly spent $1.

And sure enough, a quick look both on ancestry.com and newspapers.com started to reveal information about a Mabel Sykes and her studio in Chicago.

But then … a quick search on the internet pulled up something even more unusual: someone had written a blog post all about Mabel Sykes, on a website called “Under Every Tombsone!”

The author’s name is Jim Craig, and he has done such a wonerful job documenting many aspects of Mabel Syke’s life and career, that at the end I’m going to point you to his website to get more details that he shares about her.

But first today, I want to share a few highlights about Mabel Sykes here on the podcast. I’m going to talk about a mix of material that Jim Craig covers, with a some additional bits of info about her photography and career. You know, the kind of stuff I usually talk about here.

OK, so let’s just dive in at the begining.

Mabel Huxley in born in Illinois in 1883, the oldest of 4 children and the only daughter.

According to a story in the Chicago papers in 1914, Mabel went, in 1902, into a photography studio to have her photo taken. The photographer was instantly smitten by her beauty [the article says she was celebrated in her own day as one of the most beautiful women in Chicago.]

By the end of her appointment at the studio, Mabel has had not only her photo taken but also been asked for her hand in marriage. As the story goes — at least in an article a few years later — the photographer, Melvin Sykes, proposed to Mabel on the spot that same afternoon.

The lovebirds are married in 1902.
Mabel is 19.
Melvin is … older. In the way that often happens in the records, Melvin’s age seems to vary over the years, comparing the newspaper articles to