[A diverting photo album documenting the automobile travels, friends, families, and sites of a Franklin High School teenager and her future husband in and around Portland, Oregon, and long the West Coast before World War I. The images depict visits to Kenilworth Park, San Diego bungalows, fishing & hunting trips, sales trips for Ellis to Eastern Oregon as a wholesale grocery driver and salesman, driving the newly opened Columbia River Highway, and more.

Portland, OR: Helen Schultz Hermann, 4311 52nd St., S.E., [ca. 1914-1918]. Oblong 13.5 x 10.25 in. [98 pp (unpaginated).], on thick black paper. With 368 photographs tipped-in, most glued at corners, some printed on RPPC paper, and a few RPPC w/ identifying annotations w/in negative at lower fore-edge, a few mounted w/ black corners, sized from 1 x 1 in. up to 3.5 x 5.5 in., with most larger, and many w/ white ink annotations below, ink annotations in lower fore-edge, or manuscript on verso of a few. Contemporary flexible black cloth post-binder, gilt lettering stamped on front cover, sewn at gutter margin w/ black tie (minor bumping, edgewear to couple corners, foot of spine, a few images removed), still a very nice exemplar, w/ nearly all images retaining strong contrast. This nicely executed photo album vividly depicts the travels, lives, and adventures of a group of young Portlanders in the Progressive Era just before World War I, and then during the War. Young Helen Schultz (1899-1991) was the daughter of a local Portland Grocer who operated “The Anabel, Pure Food Grocery,” and while attending Franklin High School she often trekked with her beau in their 1917 Model T to local parks such as Kenilworth Park, the reservoir near present-day Washington Park, and hiked Larch Trail and hunted on Mount Hood. Of particular interest are a series of RPPC images of Adams and Athena, Oregon in Umatilla County, with photos showing the downtown main streets, birds-eye of Adams, the Athena High School, and the Commercial Hotel, returned with notes on verso by Ellis describing he and his friend’s adventures. A number of photos show the Marville & Thomas Watts wheat ranch near Athena, images of horse teams pulling the wheat reaper and threshing machine, horse teams, followed by images of the Pendleton Roundup, Spokane, and traveling on Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with views of steamships, sailboats, and more. One of the images of the couple and their friends traveling on the Columbia River Highway, shows Ellis Hermann holding his camera and tripod at Crown Point, as well as several views of Multnomah Falls. Photos show Helen and friends hamming it up with large Edwardian hats, holding the handle of their push mower, and many views of the family grocery store, delivery truck, and horse-drawn wagon for P. Herrington Grocer. The album concludes with what appear to be Honeymoon photos after the couple’s marriage including visits to the Cliff House in San Francisco, the Naval Training Camp in San Diego, and standing on the boundary line between the Mexico & United States. Helen was active in the Portland Chrysanthemum Society, the Beaverton, OR chapter of the Daughers of the Nile, and president of the Mt. Sylvania Garden Club. Ellis (1894-1967) worked as truck driver, Fuller Brush salesman, stock broker, and later department store buyer in Portland.