March 14, 1902 - Kenneth Martin (March 14, 1902 – Oct 1, 1999)

Photographer’s contributions to history can’t be measured

By Dr. Dipa Sarkar

Vigo County Historical Society

Kenneth Martin is known as probably the best and most prolific photographer of Terre Haute and all the adjacent areas. He was born into photography in 1909, one of seven children. His father, Frank Martin, opened Martin’s Photo Shop at 681 Wabash Ave. on the corner of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue in 1906. The growing community needed a photo shop and he was a talented photographer, doing both portrait and commercial work.

Ken Martin started working in his father’s photo shop in 1928. Actually, all his brothers and sisters worked in the shop at one time or another. Ken Martin also attended Indiana State University.

Frank Martin met an untimely death form a road accident in the early 1930’s. Ken and his brother, Willard, purchased the business from their mother and continued it. Willard managed the studio’s portrait department and Ken handled the commercial and news department. In 1929, Ken married Margaret Evinger who also joined him in the photo shop and continued working there until the studio closed in 1976.

There is no doubt that Ken Martin was an accomplished and talented photographer. With the help of Martin, the Tribune-Star Publishing Co. ran the Rotogravure section in the Sunday paper form 1928 unitl 1976.

In those years, photography was no easy job. The photographer had to deal with heavy cameras, light equipment, stands and ladders, but this talents never failed. They overcame the financial difficulties during the Depression era. At times, there were 12 5o 16 employees. Ken Martin had talents, not only in photography, but also in public relations, particularly with children who were frequent objects of his art.

At the time of the Great Depression, he took photographs of people waiting in line for bread at the Salvation Army. This picture was forever etched in the memory of people of that time. He was particularly sensitive not to show their faces, but took the pictures from the back. His other favorite subjects were teaches and farmers. He also took pictures of many famous people, such as Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, John and Robert Kennedy, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Rudy Vallee, Bud Taylor and Mordecai Brown.

Ken Martin was a charter of the National Press Photographers of America and was the recipient of many awards for outstanding contributions to his profession.

After more than 50 years, Ken Martin closed his studio and retired. He had amassed a file of more than 500,000 photographs and negatives. The bulk of his collection was given to the Indiana Historical Society, with others going to the ISU Library, the Vigo County Historical Society and the Vigo County Public Library.

His contributions, through photographs, to the history of Vigo County cannot be measured. Among others, his photos are featured in two valuable sources of information, publications written by Dorothy Jerse and Judith Calvert, namely “Terre Haute, A Pictorial History” and “On the Home Front in Vigo County, Indiana 1941 to 1945”.