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Windows on
the Past
Early Valley
Treasures
As Seen
Through the Lens of
Claude C.
"Pop" Laval
by Elizabeth M. Laval
Research & Photographic
Editor, Stephen L. Brown
Contributing Author,
William J. Conway, Jr.
$29.95 • 200 pages • Hardcover
ISBN
1-884995-47-0
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About this Book
The history of a community is preserved in
three ways—through oral narratives, the written word, and visual images.
Of these three, it is the visual images that provide the greatest
impact. Photographs bring a sense of immediacy to the viewer. Suddenly,
the past is alive—people can be seen on the streets of a city going
about their lives. They may be dressed differently, the streets may not
be paved, horses may be seen instead of cars.
Photographs allow us to preserve, in a sense, the historical
architecture of our community. Buildings, long since gone, appear to us
in photographs. Their architectural details can be appreciated once
more. For the few moments we view them, they exist again. A photograph
may show the site the building occupied on a particular block, helping
the historian to recreate a neighborhood or section of a city’s historic
downtown. Photographs can help to document costumes, events, and even
some of the social mores of a period in history. The photographer plays
an important role in capturing the essence of a city.
The arrival of photographer Claude C. “Pop” Laval in Fresno in 1911,
marked the beginning of a commercial photography career that would span
fifty-five years. During this time “Pop” Laval took pictures of
mountains, crops, businesses, streetcars, presidents, streetscapes, and
ordinary people. Although his photos of Fresno comprised the largest
part of his work, he also covered other Valley communities from Stockton
to Bakersfield. At the time of his death, in 1966, he left a body of
photographic work that is priceless. He left a photographic record of
Fresno that covered the years of Fresno’s greatest growth. The Laval
photographs have given the people of Fresno and the Valley an
opportunity to view their historic community.
—From the foreword to Early Valley Treasures, as Seen through
the Lens of "Pop" Laval by Catherine Morison Rehart, author of
The Valley’s Legends & Legacies
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