Fred Kent
Fred Kent had two major interests in life: Photography and nature.
A native of DeWitt, he came to Iowa City and the University of Iowa in 1911 as a student, bringing with him his view camera, a tripod and $160 in his pocket, Iowa City historian Irving Weber wrote in a 1978 Press-Citizen article. Weber said Kent was soon snapping pictures of everyday life in Iowa City, printing and developing them in the bathroom of his rooming house.
He also shot photos at home football games, selling postcards of the game and crowd shots at Whetstone Drug Store at Clinton and Washington streets for 5 cents apiece, Weber wrote. The work eventually gained him a job as the athletic department’s official photographer when he was only a sophomore, later becoming the university’s official photographer for all events, with office space and a dark room in what is now MacLean Hall. Later, Kent became a lecturer in photography, and 20 years later, he founded University Photo Service, managing it from 1947 to 1963, according to a biography on the UI Library’s Web site.
In all, Kent was responsible for documenting more than 60 years of UI’s history, photographing among other things the 1922 restoration and future refurbishings of Old Capitol as well as a famous 1939 photo of All-American football player Nile Kinnick.
He also was an innovator, designing a new camera to quickly and inexpensively photograph material for projecting on a screen as well as developing the use of stereographs in medicine to provide three-dimensional pictures for doctors, the UI Library’s Web site said. Eastman Kodak commissioned him in 1947 to write the first manual for medical photography and in 1984, he was the first recipient of the Iowa City Historic Preservation Commission Award for documenting the growth of the area.
Kent also was an avid bird watcher, keeping precise notes of the different birds he had seen, Weber wrote. Much of this research led to a book, “Birding in Eastern Iowa,” in 1975. He also photographed many rural and farm scenes in Johnson County, leading to the county naming its newest and largest park near Tiffin after him in 1967.