Juneau museum asks for public’s help figuring out who’s who

JUNEAU (AP) — They’re a who’s who of Juneau.

We just don’t know who they are.

At the end of this month, the Juneau-Douglas City Museum will take down an exhibit that has invited Juneau residents to put names to faces and identify between 2,000 and 3,000 unidentified photographs in the museum’s collection.

“This collection really documents the community of Juneau: school portraits, graduation photos, wedding photos, all of these great community faces,” explained Jodi DeBruyne, curator of collections and exhibits at the city museum.

On Tuesday morning, DeBruyne stood in front of a wall displaying 200 or so anonymous black-and-white photos identified only by their accession number.

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

The photos were donated by Susan Derrera, daughter of photographer Joseph Alexander, who lived in Juneau from the late 1940s to the 1980s.

“He was basically the main photographer in town from the ‘40s through the ‘80s, and he kept all these negatives,” DeBruyne said.

The photo negatives — more than 50,000 all told — came to the Museum in brown paper envelopes and colorful Kodak boxes in 2013.

After the museum received the Alexander negatives, it applied for and received a grant from the Rasmuson Foundation to preserve them.

Volunteers counted and sorted the negatives, filing them in binders and archive boxes within the museum’s climate-controlled basement.

The intent is to scan them all for permanent preservation and access, but that will take some time. “Processing this is going to be a multi-year project — job security,” DeBruyne said with a laugh, gesturing to rows of boxes on a metal shelf in the basement.

Thirteen volunteers dedicated 600 man-hours to fill those boxes.

Scanning and sorting, while a titanic effort, is the easy part. Identifying the people in the images is harder but even more important. Without identification, the photographs are anonymous, unsearchable artifacts.

Most of the donated photographs had at least a family name or a date, but thousands had no identifying marks. They were simply passport photos and ID photos showing the faces of Juneau residents 50 or so years ago.

“We really needed to convert the negatives to something we could ID from,” DeBruyne said.

To do that, museum staff were inspired in part by something they already had: a photo collage of Juneau pioneers that dates from the first decade of the 20th century.

As you walk in the door of the museum, it hangs on the right. Tiny photographs fill most of an ornate frame, and each photograph is labeled with the name of its subject. Facing the frame on the opposite wall is its modern counterpart: rows of photographs printed on vinyl and stuck on the wall.

Digitally, the museum is sharing additional unidentified photos via Facebook and on its website.

The effort has had some success. “On the wall, we’ve gotten about 60 identifications out of about 212, which is awesome,” DeBruyne said. “On Facebook, I post one every Wednesday, and we’ve got about 11 out of 30 identifications there.”

Another 80 photographs have been identified via the museum’s website.

Some of the photographs on the wall now bear small notes that attest the person’s name, but DeBruyne isn’t just collecting that; she also wants information about each person — where they worked, what clubs they belonged to, and more.

“It’s really great information because it helps us create that story for people coming to look up information on their great-great-great-great grandparents,” she said. “It’s really heartwarming to connect these photographs to the people.”

One of the more convenient connections was Barbara Potter. Her photograph was an easy match — she volunteers at the museum’s front desk. Her husband’s photograph was among the anonymous passport photos.

“I knew Joe Alexander had taken the pictures, but that was a surprise,” she said. “When I first came here, he was the photographer who took everything.”

Alexander shot her wedding photos in 1964, and one photograph accompanies a display on Alexander’s life. In addition to the photo ID project, the museum’s summer exhibit is a retrospective on the lives of six Juneau photographers.

“I think it’s a neat project, I really do,” Potter said. “I enjoyed looking at it.”

The museum’s summer exhibit, including the Juneau Who’s Who display, will be available through Sept. 24. After that, the museum will close to replace the carpeting in its Juneau history gallery. The fate of the Who’s Who display hasn’t been determined, but for now the Facebook posts will continue.

Said DeBruyne: “I’m going to continue that since everybody loves it so much.”

More in News

The Kasilof River is seen from the Kasilof River Recreation Area, July 30, 2019, in Kasilof, Alaska. (Photo by Erin Thompson/Peninsula Clarion)
King salmon fishing on Kasilof to close Thursday

If any king salmon is caught while fishing for other species, they may not be removed from the water and must be released immediately.

Un’a, a female sea otter pup who was admitted to the Alaska SeaLife Center in June 2025, plays with an enrichment toy at the center in Seward, Alaska. Photo courtesy of the Alaska SeaLife Center
SeaLife Center admits 2 seal pups, 1 orphaned otter

The three pups join the Alaska SeaLife Center’s ‘growing’ patient list.

James Wardlow demonstrates flilleting a salmon with an ulu during a smoked salmon demonstration, part of Fish Week 2023, on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Soldotna, Alaska. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Refuge to celebrate all things fish during weeklong event

Fish Week will take place July 16-19.

President Zen Kelly speaks during a meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education in Soldotna, Alaska, on Monday, July 7, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
School board finalizes budget with deep cuts to programming, classrooms

Multiple members of the board said they were frustrated by the state’s failure to fund education.

Former KPBSD Finance Director Liz Hayes speaks during a Kenai Peninsula Borough School District budget development meeting at Kenai Central High School in Kenai, Alaska, on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
School district finance department earns national awards

The two awards are based on comprehensive reviews of the district’s budget and financial reporting.

Children leap forward to grab candy during a Fourth of July parade on South Willow Street in Kenai, Alaska, on July 4, 2025. (Photo courtesy Sarah Every)
Celebrating the 4th in the streets

Kenai comes out for annual Independence Day parade.

Fire crews respond to the Bruce Fire, July 4, 2025, in Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska Division of Forestry)
Firefighting crews respond to wildfire outside Soldotna

The 8-acre fire and two “spot fires” of less than one acre each are located near Mile 102 and 103 of the Sterling Highway.

Robert Weaver was last seen at the Doroshin Bay public use cabin on June 25, 2025. (Photo provided by the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge)
Updated: Refuge ends search efforts for missing man

Robert Weaver was last seen near Skilak Lake on June 25.

Most Read

You're browsing in private mode.
Please sign in or subscribe to continue reading articles in this mode.

Peninsula Clarion relies on subscription revenue to provide local content for our readers.

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Please sign in