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Riverside and Los Angeles Area Views, ca. 1880-1889, by I.W. Taber and Others
BANC PIC 1905.06211--PIC
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Collection Title: Riverside and Los Angeles Area Views, ca. 1880-1889, by I.W. Taber and Others
Collection Number: BANC PIC 1905.06211--PIC
Extent:
1 album (52 photographic prints) ; albumen ; 18 x 28 cm.
52 digital objects
Photographer:
Isaiah West Taber and others
Repository:
The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Languages Represented:
English
Collection is available for use.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish photographs must be submitted
in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.
Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted
to research and educational purposes.
[Identification of item]
Riverside and Los Angeles Area Views, ca. 1880-1889, by I.W. Taber and Others, BANC PIC 1905.06211--PIC, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Digital Representations Available
Digital representations of selected original pictorial materials are available in the list of materials below. Digital image files were prepared from selected Library originals by the Library Photographic Service. Library originals were
copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and
the Photo CD files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files.
Isaiah West Taber was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts August 17, 1830. Taber went to sea at the age of fifteen and spent
several years working on whaling ships in the North Pacific. He came to California in 1850, where he spent four years working
first as a miner, then a farmer. Taber returned to New Bedford in 1854 where he studied dentistry and began a dental practice.
An interest in amateur photography eventually became his life-work. He settled in Syracuse, New York, where he opened his
first studio. In 1864 he returned to California at the inducement of the photographers Bradley and Rulofson, whom he worked
for until 1871. Taber established the "Taber Gallery" at No. 12 Montgomery Street in 1871. His highly successful business
was well-known for portraiture and a vast stock of California and Western views -many of which were the unacknowledged works
of other photographers. Taber's success and stature in California and abroad are evident in his being awarded the photographic
concession of the Midwinter Fair of 1893-94 in San Francisco, his being sent to London in 1897 to photograph the pageant of
the Queen Victoria Jubilee, and his commission to photograph King Edward VII. Taber's career ended in 1906 when his entire
collection of glass plates, view negatives and portraits on glass were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire.
He died February 22, 1912.
(Sources: Hart, James D. A Companion to California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p.439; Murray, W. H. The Builders
of a Great City: San Francisco's Representative Men. San Francisco: The Journal, 1891, p.329-330; and Burdette, Robert J.
American Biography and Genealogy. California edition. (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., [191-]), p. 756-761.)
This collection consists of an album of 52 albumen prints, photographed in part by Isaiah West Taber, circa 1880-1889. Included
are photographs of Pasadena, missions, ostrich farms, agriculture, orange groves, landscapes, a multi-plate panorama of Los
Angeles, and various structures entirely decorated with flowers, each representing a Southern California city in an exposition
or fair. Captions are handwritten or typed on the photographs; some are supplied for the container list.