Charles Rivers Photographs
name: label: Creator
content: Rivers, Charles, 1904-1993
label: Names
content: Chrysler Building (New York, N.Y.) -- Pictorial works
label: Names
content: Empire State Building -- Construction--1929-1930
label: Names
content: Pathe News
label: Names
content: Bates, Ruby
place: label: Place
content: New York (N.Y.) -- 1920-1930
label: Place
content: Washington (D.C.) -- 1960-1970
topic: label: Topic
content: Self-portraits, American
label: Topic
content: Iron and steel workers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Construction workers -- 1900-1950 -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Structural steel workers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Labor unions
label: Topic
content: Civil rights demonstrations -- 1960-1970
label: Topic
content: Skyscrapers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Civil rights
label: Topic
content: Peace movements -- 1960-1970
label: Topic
content: Peace movements -- 1930-1940
label: Topic
content: Scottsoro boys case
label: Topic
content: Fires
label: Topic
content: Scottsboro Trial, Scottsboro, Ala., 1931
label: Topic
content: Self-portraits
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The collection is a gift from Mr. Charles Rivers, 1989.
creator: label: Creator
content: Rivers, Charles, 1904-1993
setName: label: See more items in
content: Charles Rivers Photographs
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Charles Rivers created a certain amount of confusion about his origins, whether accidentally or intentionally.  Born Constantinos Kapornaros[1] (or Kostandinos Kapernaros)[2] in the small town of Vahos in Mani, an isolated area in the southern Peloponnesian region of Greece, on May 20, 1904, he emigrated to the United States as a child of five or six with his parents.  His school record showed that he was enrolled in 1911 at the age of seven.[3]  The family lived in Maine or New Hampshire, then Massachusetts, and later other locations in New York state.  It is believed that his new name was derived from the Charles River in Boston.[4]  The change may have been occasioned by a need to conceal his deep involvement in left-wing political and union activities.[5]
 
Mr. Rivers settled in New York City in 1950 and resided there until 1993.[6]  He sometimes identified his birthplace as Denver, Colorado,[7] but this may have been a fabrication or simplification, based on the fact that Greek church baptismal records were kept in Denver.[8]  His sons James and Ronald believe that he never became an official American citizen.  Late in life, in order to visit his birthplace, he was issued a passport, based on his school records, which stated that he was born in Denver.              	
 
Rivers photographed the construction of the Chrysler Building (1929) and the Empire State Building (1930) in New York City.  He was inspired to take up photography by seeing the work of the influential documentary photographer Lewis Hine, whose famous images of working children helped win passage of protective child labor laws.  Rivers and Hine both photographed the Empire State Building and the men building it, yet Rivers apparently was unaware until years later that his idol had been present.  Employed as an iron worker, Rivers traded his pail of tools for a Zeiss Ikon[9] camera during his lunch hour or when photographic opportunities arose.  While the workers depicted in some of the photographs clearly are aware of the photographer's presence, Rivers's project presumably was conducted more or less surreptitiously.  It is not known for certain if the paths of Rivers and Hine ever crossed, but his son Ron considers it unlikely: Hine photographed only the Empire State Building in connection with his "Men at Work" project,[10] not the earlier Chrysler Building, and Rivers did not work on the Empire State Building for a very long period.  His self-portrait on the Empire State Building, "The Bolter-Up," may have been intended as a memento during one of his last days on that job.[11]

Rivers became unemployed in the Depression and consequently became involved in national efforts to create Social Security, unemployment insurance, and housing programs.  These experiences apparently encouraged his active participation in politically leftist activities, as coverage about him in Soviet publications attests.  A pacifist, in 1935 he was involved in demonstrations aimed at preventing World War II, and in the 1960s he took part in anti-Vietnam demonstrations and encouraged young people to continue such resistance. 

In the 1950s Rivers worked in steel fabrication, in a chemistry lab as a technician, and briefly as a legislative aide for a New York state senator.

In 1986 Rivers submitted his 1930 self-portrait, posed on the Chrysler Building, to the International Year of Peace art contest sponsored by the New Times, published in Moscow: it was awarded a prize and diploma.

Mr. Rivers died in 1993, only two weeks after moving to Arlington, Texas to enter a nursing home near his sons' homes. 


1. The page on Rivers in New York University=s Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives web site (http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=82) --noted 5 June 2002), claims Rivers was born in 1905 and changed his name Ato resemble those of the Mohawk Indians working on the high steel of New York City=s skyscrapers and bridges".

2. This spelling is given in an e-mail from James Rivers to Helen Plummer, Aug. 19, 2002.

3. Ibid.

4. Telephone conversation between Ron Rivers and the author, 6 June 2002.  Additional information was provided by Ron Rivers in electronic mail messages, 5 June and 12 June 2002.

5. James Rivers, op. cit.

6. Telephone conversation with Ron Rivers, 6 June 2002.

7. In a biographical statement for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art (copy supplied by Helen Plummer), Charles Rivers called Denver his birthplace. The George Eastman House  photographer database also included this apparently erroneous information, probably derived  from the Amon Carter statement (telephone conversation with Helen Plummer, 3 June 2002).  

8. Ron Rivers, telephone conversation, 6 June 2002.

9. Identified by Charles Rivers as the camera used in the skyscraper photographs: interview by Carol Sewell, "Photographer looked at U.S. from high view," Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 27, 1986.  Rivers also used a Rolleiflex, according to Ron Rivers (see note above), but the folding Zeiss Ikon camera would have been a more convenient addition to a lunchbox than the bulkier Rolleiflex.  The collection negatives are not in the Rolleiflex square format, moreover. 

10. See Judith Mara Gutman, Lewis W. Hine and the American social conscience.  New York: Walker, 1967.

11. Ron Rivers, telephone conversation, 6 June 2002.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.5 Cubic feet (4 boxes
)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1929-1963
label: Date
content: bulk 1929-1930
custodhist: label: Custodial History
content: Prints made by Charles Rivers many years after creation of the original negatives, probably circa 1970s-1980s.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0360
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Albums
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: This finding aid originally was prepared in 1991 with the assistance of intern Mary Jane Appel, whose diligence is greatly appreciated.  The information, clarification, and advice subsequently provided by Helen Plummer of the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art and Mr. Rivers's sons Ron and James, both living in Texas,  have been invaluable.  Julie Ezell assisted with proofreading and editing.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- 1900-1950
label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Albums
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- Black-and-white photoprints -- Silver gelatin -- 1970-1990
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The collection contains: twenty-nine silver gelatin photoprints mounted on Fome-Core, Masonite, and cardboard, ranging in size from 5-1/2" x 9-1/4" to 10-11/16" x 13-13/16"; three 5" x 7" unmounted silver gelatin photoprints; a scrapbook which originally contained 56 silver gelatin photoprints, ranging in size from 2" x 3" to 7-1/2" x 9-1/2"; and silver gelatin film negatives (presumably acetate) for the prints.  The scrapbook includes a New York Daily News clipping about Rivers: "Builds a Bridge to Students" by Anthony Burton (dated May 12, 1970 by Rivers) with a photograph showing him speaking to a crowd,
 
Most of the photographs depict the construction of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings--iron workers on the job and relaxing during breaks, and pictures of the buildings at various stages of completion.  Other subjects are: a demonstration to prevent World War II (1935), a color photoprint of the Civil Rights March and Demonstration in Washington, D.C. (1963), and two magazine clippings from a Soviet publication, New Times, in which Rivers's prize-winning "Self Portrait" (1930) was reproduced.

Most of these prints were made by Charles Rivers many years after the creation of the original negatives, probably ca.1970s 1980s.  The collection is in generally good condition, except that many of the print surfaces are scratched.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials at the Smithsonian Institution

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 

Included Rivers's self-portrait, "The Bolter Up," in its summer 2002 exhibition, "Metropolis in the Machine Age," in the form of a new print made from a digital copy of the Archives Center's original negative.  The author discussed the new print from the Rivers negative and other photographs in this exhibition in an invited  gallery lecture, "The Skyscraper Photographs of Lewis Hine and Charles Rivers," Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, June 6, 2002. 

Materials at Other Organizations

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

See Barbara McCandless and John Rohrbach, Singular moments: photographs from the Amon Carter Museum, with select entries by Helen Plummer.  Reproduction of a Rivers photograph, with description and analysis, p. 30.  Additional information has been generously supplied by Ms. Plummer, curatorial associate, and Barbara McCandless, curator of photography, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth Texas.

Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University

Museum of the City of New York

Some of his photographs were included in the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art exhibition, "Looking at America: Documentary Photographs of the 1930s and 1940s," December 1986.