Goodridge Brothers Photographers

Written by Anna Mae Maday, Manager, Eddy Historical & Genealogy Collection of Hoyt Public Library in Saginaw, Michigan
March 2001


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In 1847 Glenalvin J. Goodridge, the eldest son of William C. and Evalina Goodridge, established a photography studio in York, Pennsylvania. His brothers, Wallace L. and William O. also became interested in the art of photography, and when Glenalvin moved to Michigan in the early 1860's, the brothers followed. Soon after their arrival about 1862, the brothers founded a photography business in East Saginaw. William O. Goodridge, the youngest brother, was born in 1846. Wallace L., who was born about 1840, was the last brother to survive, dying in 1922. Glenalvin, who passed away in Minnesota in 1867, was the victim of tuberculosis. William O. Goodridge died in 1890, but his youngest son John F. followed in his footsteps participating in the work of the family studio at the turn of the century. Other family members were also engaged in working for the Goodridge Brothers Photographers.

Thank goodness for the Goodridge Brothers! Even though there were photographers in the Saginaw Valley before the Goodridges arrived from Pennsylvania about 1862, the Goodridge legacy of historical views surpassed that of their predecessors and other contemporary photographers. If the Goodridges had stayed in Pennsylvania, would Saginawians be able to stroll through time and see the first wooden churches located in East Saginaw? Would we ever have been able to view the Saginaw River during the floods of the 1870's?

We might never have seen the "Grant-Colfax" presidential election banner flying over the eastern approach to the Genesee Street Bridge nor the bridge tollbooth during an 1870's snowstorm. We would never have experienced the aftermath of the devastating Jackson Hall fire on Washington Street or viewed the destruction of the Mead & Lee Planing Mill. Would we ever have seen the Exchange Block, the Crouse Block, the original Bancroft House hotel, Root & Midler's Rectified Liquors, or the soda fountain at Dunk's Drug Store? We would have missed that historic day when Genesee's plank boards were replaced by Nicholson pavement. If the Goodridge Brothers had never set foot in East Saginaw, the scene of muddy Jefferson Avenue, with its plank fences and frame house where retailer Frank G. Wilkin resided, would have been long forgotten. What Saginaw photographers would have ventured into the lumber forest to take that picture of the 'Champion Load' of logs? Would there have been a photographic studio to fill the void if the Goodridge Brothers had never come to East Saginaw?


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We may never know why the African-American Goodridge family chose East Saginaw as their home. Upon his arrival in East Saginaw, Wallace Goodridge worked as a barber for Samuel G. Clay, the East Saginaw theater manager who also ran the barbershop at the Bancroft House hotel. When the Goodridge Brothers re-established their photographic business in East Saginaw their work caught the attention of resident James S. Webber, who began to collect their photographic views. James S. Webber who was the father of prominent attorney William L. Webber, documented daily life in East Saginaw by keeping a diary. It was in this diary that he spoke of the speech given at Jackson Hall on January 31, 1868 by Frederick Douglass, the famous African-American lecturer. Five days later Douglass also spoke at Irving Hall, which was located next to the Bancroft House. It had been the Goodridge family who invited Frederick Douglass to Saginaw in 1868. William C. Goodridge, the photographers' father, was acquainted with Frederick Douglass and had been a guest in the Douglass home fifteen years earlier.

Some of the thoughts expressed by Frederick Douglass on his visit to East Saginaw were documented by the local newspaper and included:

"It was natural to believe in great men...../ ....reverence for great men has been the means of doing much mischief, it has crowned heads where it should have taken them off. Like fire it is dangerous only when out of place."

"...the Negro elevated, no longer a servant but an ally, will march honorably in the paths of civilization and knowledge...."

".... there is no such thing as self-made men; all men are dependent upon their fellow beings..... No depth of originality can lift a man into absolute independence of human brotherhood."

"Give the black man the ballot; let him alone; and let him do for himself; let him work out the problem of his own redemption and elevation; faithfully make good to him the pledges which the nation's peril wrung from its slow justice...."

In 1868 when the Goodridge Brothers photographed the Grant-Colfax election banner stretching across Genesee Avenue, African-Americans were not yet allowed to vote in Michigan. During the era that the Goodridges photographed Dunk's Drug Store, that same establishment ran advertisements that featured derogatory depictions of African-Americans. But Saginaw's African-American photographers distinguished themselves during that era. Perhaps they would not have referred to themselves as "self-made men".But perhaps they understood the statement Frederick Douglass made in East Saginaw that wintry evening in February 1868... that " the great study of mankind is man."

Because of the Goodridge photographers we can study the pictures of long-forgotten Saginawians, babies in their carriages, a group of women posing as men, or the construction workers at the Hoyt Library. Today Saginawians can find numerous books where Goodridge Brothers' photographs have been reproduced. Through those images we can envision life in the Michigan lumber mills or lumber camps. We can travel Saginaw streets and visit the businesses and buildings from Saginaw's lumbering era. Through the Goodridge photographers' lens we also can study mankind.

Suggested Reading
  • Green, John M. Negroes In Michigan History (Reprint of the Michigan Manual of Freedmen's Progress).
  • Jezierski, John Vincent. Enterprising Images: The Goodridge Brothers, African-American Photographers 1847-1922.
  • Michigan History Magazine. Volume 56. No. 1.
  • Mills, James Cooke. History Of Saginaw County.
  • Ruffin, Roosevelt S.. Black Presence In Saginaw Mich: 1855-1900.
  • Rydahl, Eugene E.. History of the Legitimate Theater in East Saginaw, Michigan from 1860-1884.
  • Saginaw Weekly Enterprise February 6, 1868.

Click to View These Related Items:

Keywords: Bancroft House (Hotel)  ; Dunk's Drug Store  ; Goodridge Brothers Photographers (Building)  ; Hoyt Public Library  ; Crouse Block (Building)  ; Jackson Hall  ; Goodridge, Glenalvin J., 1829-1867  ; Goodridge, Wallace L., 1840-1922  ; Goodridge, William O., 1846-1890  ; African American photographers  ; Logging  ; Lumbering  ; Goodridge Brothers Photographers  ; African Americans  ; Clay, Samuel G.  ; Douglass, Frederick, 1817?-1895  ; Webber, William L.  ; Photographers  ; 
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