Hare, Alice

Biography

Mrs. Hare was born Alice Iola Schnatterly, on December 12, 1859, in New Geneva, Pennsylvania. Born to a large family, she was one of eight children. In 1877 she married James W. Hare. In 1880 the first of the Hares' four sons, John, was born. John would eventually become a photographer and work for several San Francisco newspapers as well as the Chicago Daily Journal . In 1881 the Hare family moved to Carlinville, Illinois, where two more of their sons, James and Ray, were born. In 1895, the Hares moved to Santa Clara, California. Their fourth son, Harry, was born that same year. Shortly thereafter, perhaps encouraged by her son John, Mrs. Hare began to practice photography.

Little of Mrs. Hare's work is to be found before 1900, when one of her photographs won an honorable mention in the San Francisco Chronicle's Amateur Photography contest and was published. The following year she began to advertise her photography in the business section of the Santa Clara News, her logo stating "Unmounted Views a Specialty". In 1902, Sunset Magazine featured Mrs. Hare's work in two of their issues. In January, her photos illustrated two articles on onion harvesting in the Santa Clara Valley. In December, her photograph "Beauty of Galzenwood Rosebush at San Jose, California, on Christmas Day, 1901" appeared accompanying a poem. The next year she published San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, a collection of twenty one photographs, including such subjects as prune farming, San Jose's St. James Park, Glazenwood Roses, and the Santa Clara Mission.

In 1904 Mrs. Hare displayed several of her photographs, primarily of California agriculture, in the California Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Responding to the popularity of the display, and perhaps recognizing the potential of photography to lure more people to the West, she proclaimed, "It is safe to say that California will have many visitors and settlers in the near future." 1904 also saw the publication of her privately printed viewbook Vistas de San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley .

That same year, Mrs. Hare and ten other women founded the Santa Clara Women's Improvement Club, an organization dedicated to civic improvement activities such as cleaning and maintaining local neighborhoods, restoring and renovating historic areas, gardening, planting trees, and eliminating unsightly elements such as billboards from public view. Her involvement with the Women's Improvement Club led to a more active interest in local history and eventual membership in other local and statewide clubs and organizations, such as the Outdoor Art League, The Sempervirans Club, the Santa Clara Historical Society, and the California Writer's Club. Mrs. Hare eventually created a booklet on the history of the California Missions, and, in 1909, was the Northern California chair responsible for marking the mission bells signposts for El Camino Real.

In 1905 Sunset Magazine used Mrs. Hare's work to illustrate the article "Where Roses Grow on Trees", published in the January issue. In 1906 her garden scenes were included in Road of a Thousand Waters, a photographic essay of El Camino Real. The following year she attended a convention of the Photographer's Association of California, where she displayed several of her photographs and received an award of merit. In 1908, the magazine Camera Craft published Mrs. Hare's photograph "A Country Lane", which took third prize in their January competition.

In 1911, the Hare family moved to the community of Winton, in Merced County, California. They were only the second family to move there. In February of the following year, Mrs. Hare photographed the Winton bell ringing, marking the founding of Winton's first church. Later that year she exhibited her photographs, oil paintings, and pastels in a fair celebrating Winton's founding. After photographing historic moments of Winton's beginnings, there is a significant decline in her photographic activity after 1912. This may have been the result of her demanding involvement in establishing many of Winton's first institutions and participating in many community activities. In addition to helping found the Winton Improvement Club, she also helped establish the community's first grammar school and school district, planted trees, wrote articles such as "Winton Wants Rural Outdoor Adornment", and became the area's first librarian. It is not known to what extent she practiced painting, or if any of her work in paint media survives.

After her husband's death in 1920, Mrs. Hare resided briefly in Concord and Oakland, California. In 1924, she moved to Berkeley, California. She remained a librarian, and gave evening readings at patrons' homes. She also attended classes at Berkeley High School and wrote romance and adventure stories, some of which she hoped would become Hollywood screenplays. She also began to compose her autobiography. Mrs. Hare died on July 20, 1942.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Hare does not seem to have financially benefitted from either her photography or her writing. She died intestate, not being able to afford a tombstone to mark her grave at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Nor does she seem to have maintained any renown as a photographer. As early as 1913, the Santa Clara News, upon a return visit she made to the area, referred to her as "Mrs. Alice Hare, prominent club woman and writer". Even her obituary in the Berkeley Daily Gazette makes no mention of her photographic work, listing her as "A. Hare, Writer..."

(Source: Henry, Michael. "Alice Hare: Views of California Beauty" in A Directory of Women in California Photography Before 1901 . Volume 2. Arcata, CA : P.E. Palmquist, 1991. Pages 159-162)

From the guide to the Alice Iola Hare Photograph Collection, (The Bancroft Library.)