Ever since Samuel Long snapped the first image of Portsmouth in 1840, talented photographers have captured the city. The era from 1900 to 1925 is remembered for a huge body of work by the St. Clair Studio. Ira M. Clair documented the dawn of the 20th century, but who was he?
We know that Mr. Clair was born in North Hampton, NH, in 1871. He may also have been a musician. Google says he married Clara, in 1903. They lived on South Street and had two children, Roger and Mario. That’s not much and I’ve yet to find a single image of the photographer or his family.
Pictured today are young female twins professionally posed. Does anyone know them? The large image was neatly packaged in a cardboard frame that folds out to stand upright on a mantle or bookshelf.
Beyond his studio work from walk-ins to wealthy families like the Badgers, Ira Clair is known among modern historians and collectors for an array of Real Photo Postcards (RPPCs) that largely replaced the stereoview cards of the Victorian era.
The Portsmouth Athenaeum collection includes over 100 images. St. Clair covered local parades, schools, churches, naval and celebratory events like Flag Day, the 1910 Return of the Sons and Daughters, and maypole dancers at the Isles of Shoals. He documented the earliest interior of the newly formed Portsmouth Historical Society on State Street and souvenir shots of the rooms in the historic Moffatt-Ladd House on Market Street. He photographed the city’s Cottage Hospital, the building of the Atlantic Heights neighborhood, the YMCA building on Congress Street, and the Portsmouth Athletic Club on Court Street.
St. Clair’s endlessly repetitive advertisements in the Portsmouth Herald reminded readers that the office, first at 3 Congress Street, then at 16 Market Street, was open for holiday photos. Following Ira M. Clair’s death at Laconia in December 1927, his business was purchased by Samuel Kingsbury, lately of Newburyport, MA. Added details from readers welcomed.
© J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.
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