Digital imaging of the Federal Cartridge Collection
Federal Cartridge Corporation (now known as Federal Premium Ammunition, a subsidiary of Vista Outdoor) will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2022.
The Anoka County Historical Society is helping Federal prepare for this by organizing their historical material. This process started a year ago when our collections manager at the time, Audra, started spending time at Federal Cartridge sorting through potentially historical items.
Then last September, Federal delivered a truckload of boxes and other items identified by Audra for us to organize and catalog in the same manner that we do with all of our collections. This means entering each item into a database (we use software called Collective Access) by assigning each a unique ID number, entering a detailed description along with other information, and attaching a digital image.
My role in this process has been to create the digital images of the collection, mostly through photography. As I watched, an area in our exhibit hall was turned into temporary storage with many boxes, stacks of printing plates, and other items from Federal. I began to get concerned about the volume of things that would need digital images, knowing that much of that effort would fall on me. Finally, in early January this year, I got the word that much of the collection was ready to photograph. I started with the pictures and posters that were framed behind glass, thinking correctly that they would be fun to see and challenging to photograph. I just didn’t realize how challenging due to the reflections off their glass. I knew the overhead light fixtures, although turned off, would still be evident. so I devised a way to suspend a black sheet over the work area to block the reflections. It almost worked. I was still getting reflections from the rigging supporting the camera so I needed to wrap everything with black cloth. After some trial and error and black electrical tape to cover even the white logo on the camera, I got great results.
Old photographs have always fascinated me so the group photograph of the Federal employees posing outside the factory in 1925 is one of my favorite items. I wonder if they had to halt production for this photograph to be taken? If I counted correctly, there are 59 people in the photograph. It is interesting to note that over half are women.
Other favorite items were some of the framed advertising pieces. One from the 1950s depicts a smiling man in a hunting jacket holding a box of Federal shot shells. Federal must have liked this one, too, because there are also in the collection two larger versions of this poster, one the mirror image of the other. One of the printing plates is for a magazine-page-sized sheet using the same image with a mail-in form to get free copies of “How to Bag the Upland Flyers” and/or “How to Get Your Duck.”
There are also several pieces of original art that I enjoyed like one showing two men cleaning their guns and swapping stories after a presumably successful hunt.
To date, I have taken roughly 350 photographs of the Federal Collection. Another volunteer has scanned about 700 pages of documents. It seemed like a massive undertaking at first but, like most large projects, it is gradually getting done and the end is in sight. The remaining objects ready to be photographed consist primarily of about 100 printing plates and maybe 75 (empty) boxes of shot shells. On the other hand, the scanning could keep someone busy for a long time, but it, too, is getting done.
Don Johnson is on staff at the Anoka County Historical Society. See the other images referenced in this column at abcnewspapers.com.