History Spotlight
Buried Treasure Written by Doug Humes Photos courtesy of the Marple Historical Society
C
harles Clark knew from a fairly young age that he wanted to be a photographer. Born in 1880, by 1900 he was listing himself as a “photographer.” In 1907, Charles was employed as a staff photographer for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, the largest circulating newspaper in the area. “In Philadelphia, nearly everyone reads the Bulletin.” Clark’s work was seen by a lot of local readers. By 1918, Clark and his wife and two daughters settled in at a house at Summit and Broomall Avenues. Charles could walk two blocks, to take the trolley into town. In September 1918 at age 38, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a photographer. He never made it “over there,” as the war ended months later. He took a new job, as a newsreel cameraman for Fox Movietones, the company that provided silent video clips to be shown in movie theaters, between features. Charles worked for them for the next 11 years. His work survives: The Fox Movietone archives are housed at the University of South Carolina. You can search that collection by cameraman, “Clark”, to see all of the interesting events he saw in that job.
The young studio photographer with his camera
In 1930, Clark opened up his photography studio in Media, but also was a staff photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. The family still lived at the same home on Summit Avenue. He was employed during the Great Depression. Life was good – and then it was not. Charles was diagnosed with lung cancer, and was taken within weeks, two days before Christmas 1942.
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