Louis Philip Van Oeyen was the first photographer hired as staff on a Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper, and a pioneer in many techniques and activities of photojournalism. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, on January 17, 1865 to immigrant parents. Van Oeyen's father, Francis, a dispossessed Bavarian nobleman, moved the family repeatedly to homes in Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario. Louis received only a rudimentary education, but went on to a successful career.
Louis Van Oeyen worked throughout his life in industries later considered part of "the media." From 1895-1898, he was employed by the Wonderland Theater in Detroit, Michigan, operating a "pay for play" Edison phonograph, using the name Lew Owens. From 1898-1901, Van Oeyen was part of two stereopticon (or "magic Lantern") lecture teams, Fay and Owens, and Owens and Ferguson. These partnerships were his first recorded employment in which photography played a significant role. It was at this time that he moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio.
Van Oeyen's career changed abruptly on August 20, 1901. An explosion at the Cleveland water intake, in Lake Erie, killed five workers. Van Oeyen managed to accompany the rescue boat and photographed the disaster. Reporters from the Cleveland
Three weeks later, on September 1, 1901, Van Oeyen and his wife Edith were touring the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, when President William McKinley was shot nearby. Van Oeyen immediately cabled the
In an era of flamboyant journalists, Van Oeyen personified the adventurous photographer. He shot portraiture, politics, disasters, crime, scandal, or sports with equal skill. However, his greatest love was baseball. He became the official photographer for the American League in 1908, and then also for the World Series, until 1922, when the wire services began pool coverage of professional baseball.
Ready to innovate and alert for the "scoop," Van Oeyen covered a 1923 Jack Dempsey championship boxing match in Montana, and then developed the film in the washroom of an express train speeding east. The Cleveland
Van Oeyen assisted other photographers at the beginning of their careers. His most famous pupil was Margaret Bourke-White, who began her professional life in Cleveland in 1927 and achieved international renown with Time-Life. Herman Seid, whose photographs form another collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society, was hired and trained at the Cleveland
Van Oeyen retired from the Cleveland
The Louis Van Oeyen Photographs, 1895-1945 and undated, consist of photographs and negatives taken by photographer Louis Van Oeyen before and during his career as a Cleveland
The collection includes 2,961 black and white photographs of varying sizes and approximately 2,900 black and white negatives of varying sizes.
This collection constitutes a remarkable, but somewhat selective, view of Cleveland, Ohio and journalism in the first three decades of the twentieth century. The collection represents only a small portion of his production. Many of the earliest views are copy negatives of prints for which the original negatives must have been lost. It seems that the material in the collection constituted items selected by Van Oeyen for his projected but uncompleted autobiography, "Forty Years In Focus."
The collection strongly reflects Van Oeyen's personal interests, especially in sporting activities, technological innovation, politics, and entertainment. Fully a third of the prints depict sports, particularly baseball. Automobile, aviation, horse racing, and boxing are also prominent. Technology is covered with extensive series of images from the Ormond Beach, Florida, automobile races; the National Air Races, famous aviators, and dirigibles; and ship launchings. Political coverage includes national and local figures, among them several presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt.
Smaller bodies of subject material include photographs of crime, disasters, legal proceedings, and "story art" for fictional serial stories published by the newspaper. Crime illustration includes portraits of Cassie Chadwick, and serial murders on the Guiness Farm in LaPorte, Indiana. Disasters include the Collinwood School and Cleveland Clinic Fires, floods, and aviation, automotive, and railroad wrecks. Legal coverage includes an extensive series on the John T. Scopes "Monkey Trial," including candid portraits of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan.
Chronologically, the collection is strongest in images from the 1900s and the 1920s-1930s. The decade of the 1910s is almost completely lacking.
The collection is arranged in three series.
The researcher should also consult PG 536 Andrew Kraffert Photographs.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] PG 439 Louis Van Oeyen Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of Helen Van Oeyen Blystone in 1980.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.