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Guide to the Alaska Photograph Collection
Wyles Mss 150  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access Restrictions
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms
  • Related Materials

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Alaska Photograph Collection
    Dates: ca. 1880s-1950s
    Bulk Dates: 1887-1920
    Collection number: Wyles Mss 150
    Creator: White, Stephen
    Collection Size: 2.5 linear feet (4 document boxes, 3 oversize boxes, 1 map folder).
    Repository: University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections
    Santa Barbara, CA 93106
    Abstract: About 800 photographs, loose and in three albums, captions in English, including photographers Eric A. Hegg, P. S. Hunt, H. G. Kaiser, P. Edward Larss and J. E. N. Duclos, Lomen Brothers, and Miles Brothers. Subjects include: boats, children, churches, coastline, countryside, dogsleds, Eskimos (Tlingit / Haidu - portraits, daily activities, dances, hunting, schools, villages, and other), glaciers, gold mining and milling, harbors, houses, icebergs, Klondikers, mountains, parades, railroads, reindeer, rivers and river steamers, settlers and homesteads, ships and shipwrecks (incl. Thetis), school classes, skiing, totem poles, towns and villages (Anchorage, Circle City, Cordova, Dawson, Eagle City, Fairbanks, Fort Wrangell, Howkan, Juneau, Kennicott, Ketchikan, Metlakahtla, Nome, Port Simpson, St. Michael, Seward, Sitka, Treadwell, Valdez, White Horse), and winter scenes.
    Physical location: Boxes 1-4 (Del Sur); Boxes 5-7 (Del Sur Oversize); Map Folder (Map Cabinet 1/7).
    Languages: English

    Access Restrictions

    None.

    Publication Rights

    Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

    Preferred Citation

    Alaska Photograph Collection. Wyles Mss 150. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Acquisition Information

    Purchase and donation from Stephen White, 2006.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The collection contains about 800 photographs, representing the work of numerous Alaska photographers, including Becker Photo, Neal D. Benedict, Brickley, Case & Draper, Beverly Bennett Dobbs, Griffin's, Edward de Groff, F. Jay Haynes & Bro., Hazo, Eric A. Hegg, Huey, P. S. Hunt, H. G. Kaiser, Kennedy, Albert B. Kinne, P. Edward Larss and J. E. N. Duclos, Merl La Voy, Logemann, Lomen Brothers, Meyer, Miles Brothers, F. H. Nowell, Schallerer's Photo, Sitka View & Portrait Co., Sydney Laurence Co., I. W. Taber, Welden, Wilse & Kirk Photo, Lloyd Winter and Percy Pond. Loose photographs comprise the bulk of the collection, but there also are three related albums. In addition, several Alaska monographs, describing or containing the work of Alaskan photographers have been cataloged separately. The contents of the collection were assembled by Stephen White from multiple sources over several decades.
    Subjects in the collection include: boats, children, churches, coastline, countryside, dogsleds, Eskimos (Tlingit / Haidu - portraits, daily activities, dances, hunting, schools, villages, and other), glaciers, gold mining and milling, harbors, houses, icebergs, Klondikers, mountains, parades, railroads, reindeer, rivers and river steamers, settlers and homesteads, ships and shipwrecks (incl. Thetis), school classes, skiing, totem poles, towns and villages (Anchorage, Circle City, Cordova, Dawson, Eagle City, Fairbanks, Fort Wrangell, Howkan, Juneau, Kennicott, Ketchikan, Metlakahtla, Nome, Port Simpson, St. Michael, Seward, Sitka, Treadwell, Valdez, White Horse), and winter scenes.
    Numbers in parentheses in the container list indicate number of images, i.e. (22) = 22 images.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Alaska
    Alaska--Pictorial works.

    Related Materials

    Other collections with similar materials at UCSB Special Collections include:
    • Alaska and Canada Photograph Collection, ca. early-mid 1900s. (Wyles Mss 147).
    • Alaska / Klondike Magic Lantern Slides, 1898-1912. 52 slides, including images of indigenous population, as well as miners and seal-fur company employees, reindeer wrangling, steamers in ice, and eruption of Mt. Katmai in 1912. Locations include Nome, St. Michaels, Fort Wrangle, Kodiak, and Port Clarence. (Wyles Ms 143).
    • "Alaska Scenery." Six b/w 4 1/2" x 6" ambrotype prints, tied together in a booklet, of Sitka harbor, Muir and Davidson glaciers, and other scenes, taken by McAlpin and Lamb Photo, ca. 1890s. (Wyles SC 629).
    • Alaska Scenes Photograph Collection, ca. 1900-1920. Approx. 50 b/w loose photos, many of Eskimos, sleds and dogs, settlements and scenes around Nome. (Wyles Mss 155).
    • Arctic Scenes Photograph Album, ca. 1899-1903. 64 black/white photographs, mainly of the Eskimo population and environs of Alaska. (Wyles Mss 136).
    • Ewald, Henry L. One letter (TLS) from S. Halvorsen and accompanying b/w photographs of whales and Akutan Whaling Station, Alaska, 7 Sept. 1937. (SC 103).
    • Smith [Ben] Alaska Yukon Gold Rush Collection, ca. 1882-1915 [bulk 1898-1901]. Papers of Ben Smith, from Redwood City, California, who went to the Alaska Yukon goldfields ca. 1899-1900, and then apparently returned to California. Includes correspondence, diaries/journals, documents, financial records, maps, and other ephemera, much of it relating to Smith's stay in Alaska. (Wyles Mss 1).
    • Swineford [Alfred P.] Papers, 1885-1889. Biographical sketch of Alfred P. Swineford, copies of correspondence from him, to his daughter, Nelly Flower Stafford (Mrs. E. O. Stafford), a manuscript entitled "A Cruise of Ten Thousand Miles in Alaskan Waters," and a description of Ketchikan. The often lengthy letters describe in detail Swineford's impressions of Alaska and its inhabitants in the era immediately preceding the Gold Rush there. (Wyles Mss 14).
    Collections of photographs by Alaskan photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries also can be found on websites such as the Alaska Digital Archives, at http://vilda.alaska.edu/index.php  and at other repositories such as:
    • Alaska State Library
    • Glenbow Museum Archives (Calgary)
    • University of Alaska (Fairbanks)
    • University of California, Berkeley (Bancroft Library)
    • University of Washington Libraries