Peggy's Home Page

Hi! I'm Peggy Domer and this is me once upon a time. Since this picture was taken, I've done and seen a few things. In recent years, while completing an MLS degree, I had an opportunity to work on the Bridging the Urban Landscape project with Barry Chad at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. This project gave me an opportunity to work with the Pittsburgh Photographic Library and to learn about the talented photographers and pioneers of photojournalism who contributed to such a unique collection. Around this time, I also processed and preserved the mostly photographic archives of Magee-Womens Hospital. Working with archives is fascinating because you learn history in the process and can even play detective sometimes in order to discover missing information.

All this activity enabled me to complete a degree at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Preservation, especially of libraries and archives, is my main concern now, and my favorite media to work with is film. Here are a couple images from my own family archive that are pretty remarkable in that they have lasted through one hundred hot and humid Pittsburgh summers. Other than deterioration from exposure to temperature and humidity fluctuations, and from chemicals such as those found in commercial photo albums, the worst enemy of photographs is light. So keep your family photos in the dark in the coolest part of the house or apartment, and away from the attic or basement. Both Light Impressions and Gaylord Bros. are good sources of photographic archival supplies, and each publishes a catalog which can be ordered for free.

This is my maternal grandfather, Guido Aland, playing Hamlet in a high school performance in 1895. He later worked in his father's tailoring business in Pittsburgh. Guido became a designer and won an award as a window dresser, but the theater was always in his blood.

This is Guido's mother, Sophia Roman Aland. She was a music teacher in her native Baltimore, where she was born in 1852. This photo must have been taken after she moved to Pittsburgh, which was in 1875. Sophia was organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in its original location on Fifth Ave. and Grant Street downtown. She also sang in the choir at St. Philomena's Church in the Strip District, and even wrote music when she found a moment to spare.

I think it's time to do a little traveling. Have you ever been to San Francisco? I used to live there and will always be drawn to the beautiful landscape of Northern California. I wonder what the weather's like in the City by the Bay right now. Let's check out the view from the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill. If you enjoy spectacular scenery, celtic culture and friendly people, may I suggest a trip to Scotland.

While we're in the travel mode, I'd like to show you some photos from the trip I took to France in 1992. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is spectacular, especially when seen through the blossoming trees on the parvis in the Springtime. Yes, I did climb the towers to meet Viollet-le-Duc's charming gargoyles. If you would like to go on a tour of the City of Light right now, come with me to Paris.

Here's another photo I took in Paris. Do you recognize the figure? It's the Winged Victory or Nike of Samothrace. This powerful figure rises triumphant from a ship's prow, sculpted out of stone. It once guarded the entrance to a temple erected to commemorate a sea battle in the Greek Isles sometime in the 2nd century B.C. The figure and part of the prow were excavated from the Sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace in 1863. Nike now commands the top of a long flight of stairs in the Greek Antiquities section at the Louvre. But I first became acquainted with Nike when I was a youngster visiting the magnificent Hall of Architecture at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. There, a plaster cast of her sits among other relics of splendid monuments collected over a century ago. I had always wanted to see the "real thing" up close and personal, and I was definitely impressed.

Before you go, take a moment or two and visit some of my favorite Web Sites: