The Sourisseau Academy’s Thomas Layton (Professor Emeritus, Anthropology) writes of two of the Academy’s latest photo-filled studies of the Santa Clara Valley:
San José’s Andrew P. Hill High School is well known to all. Less well remembered is Andrew P. Hill, San José’s most accomplished artist and photographer of the late 19th century, whose name graces that venerable institution. And even less remembered (let us say, forgotten) was the influence of Laura Watkins, his mother-in-law, who insisted that he earn enough to support her daughter. Mrs. Watkins thus deserves a modicum credit for Hill’s photographic legacy. Inquiring readers can view the rest of the story!
There was a time, before the dawn of pixels and digits, when movies arrived at theaters on big reels, each holding hundreds of feet of celluloid film. In November’s “Sourisseau News” video, supported by Linda L. Lester, we relive an era—when men dressed in suits and women wore gloves—to be carried far away by images upon a silver screen. Rick Helin [SJSU psychology alumnus], who now spends much of his time restoring the earliest films of the Santa Clara Valley, returns us to yesteryear to experience the magnificence of San José’s theatre district, from vaudeville to talkies. Take that magical journey.