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California Camera Company daybook
SFH 481
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Table of contents
Title: California Camera Company daybook
Dates: 1896-1897
Collection Number: SFH 481
Creator/Collector:
California Camera Company (San Francisco, Calif.)
Extent: 1 volume
Repository:
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California 94102
Abstract: Daybook of sales of cameras, chemicals, photographic prints, negatives and equipment
Language of Material: English
The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours, with photographs available during Photo Desk
hours. Collections that are stored offsite should be requested 48 hours in advance.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.
California Camera Company daybook. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
Gift, 2018-1.
Biography/Administrative History
Born in Milwaukee, Nelson C. Hawks entered the printing trade at sixteen. He was hired by Marder-Luse & Co., type founders,
and came to San Francisco, where he would establish the Pacific Type Foundry in 1873. Hawks is most notable for proposing
the point system of type sizing to Marder in 1877, a system that became widely adopted by type founders throughout the United
States and England. He later was owner and operator of California Camera Company at 124 Geary St., San Francisco, which opened
about July 1896. By 1905, the Company had moved to Alameda, where Hawks resided.
Scope and Content of Collection
This daybook, titled Orders on cover, documents sales to customers throughout California from a San Francisco business, dating
Sept. 7, 1896 through Sept. 30, 1897. Notable customers include photographer Arnold Genthe, local architect Henry Kenitzer,
and surgeons Henry D’Arcy Power, Emmet Rixford, and John W. Baker. A January 1897 store inventory is found in the middle
of the chronological arrangement. The book ends with printed lists of customers and addresses in California, Oregon, Washington,
Arizona, Nevada, and San Francisco.
Photography—Equipment and supplies.
Photographic apparatus & supplies—California—San Francisco.
Photographers—California—San Francisco—1890-1900.
Hawks, Nelson C., 1840-1929 – Archives.
Daybooks.