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Archived Exhibition

Marin Family Photo Album

Exhibition dates: December 6, 2006 – May 4, 2007

At the beginning of 2006, the Marin History Museum began an ongoing project to further document the many diverse families that call Marin County home. To date, the Museum has collected over 500 photographs from different ethnic communities and neighborhoods in the county through a series of Family Photo Days. During these events, community members shared family photographs and recounted personal stories of their lives in Marin to Museum staff and volunteers. Selected images were then copied on-site by a professional photographer and archived by the Museum as part of its permanent collection.

The photographs included in this exhibition were all collected during the Museum’s Family Photo Days and explore many aspects of Marin life dating from the late 1800s through the present. They include images of everyday life in Marin including snapshots of long-time residents, new immigrants, workers, holiday gatherings, weddings, graduations, well-known areas of the county and much more. The photographs on display were arranged according to five themes: Celebrations, In Uniform, Fun & Leisure, On the Road, and At Work.

Marin Family Photo Album is made possible by generous support from the Marin Community Foundation.

Special thanks to all the Family Photo Days donors and participants for their generosity and interest in the Marin History Museum.

We are grateful to Vinh Q. Luu, Project Director, Community Action Marin and Mary Davis, Director of Excursions & Entertainment, Villa Marin for their outreach efforts on behalf of the Museum. Thanks also to Susan Goldstein, City Archivist, San Francisco Public Library and Patricia Akre, Retired Photography Curator, San Francisco Public Library for sharing their resources and experience to develop the Museum’s Family Photo Days.

The Marin History Museum’s Family Photo Days and Marin Family Photo Album exhibition are based on the Shades project which began in Los Angeles in 1991 as a local exhibition of the city’s diverse communities. The phenomenal success of the "Shades of LA” project generated interest in a statewide version, "Shades of California."

Taking a walk in Tennessee Valley (l to r: May Lee, Jake Ezekiel and Bob Lee), 1992
Courtesy of May Lee

Roy A. Brown family first Christmas in Marin (Barbara Leibert playing violin), 1937
Courtesy of Barbara Leibert

Family portrait, before living in Marin and after a six month stay at Angel Island (l to r: Kazuo, Michie, Richard and Agnes Matsuishi), c.1940
Courtesy of Sally Matsuishi