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Watkins (Carleton E.) Mammoth Plate Photographs of Comstock Mining, Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles County, and the American
West
photCL Watkins 39-98
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Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Carleton E. Watkins Mammoth Plate Photographs of Comstock Mining, Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles County, and the American
West
Creator:
Watkins, Carleton E., 1829-1916
Identifier/Call Number: photCL Watkins 39-98
Physical Description:
22.06 Linear Feet
(8 boxes)
Physical Description:
61 Photographic Prints
(mammoth plate, albumen; size of prints varies, approximately 40 x 53 cm. (15 3/4 x 20 3/4 in.))
Date (inclusive): 1861-1880
Abstract: A collection of 61 mammoth plate photographs by American photographer Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), of various subjects
in the American West, 1861-1880. The photographs include mines and mills in the Comstock district, Nevada; Yosemite Valley;
Los Angeles County ranches and agriculture; San Francisco's maritime commerce and stately residences; Salt Lake City, Utah;
and assorted landscape and coastal views.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
RESTRICTED. Due to the fragility of the prints, available only with curatorial approval. Requires extended retrieval and delivery
time.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and
obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Carleton E. Watkins Mammoth Plate Photographs of Comstock Mining, Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles
County, and the American West, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Item nos. 42, 43, 45-52: Purchased from Goodspeed's Book Shop, 1968.
Item nos. 53-71: Purchased from Grahame Hardy, 1964.
Item nos. 72-87: Purchased from David Magee, 1958.
Item nos. 88-92: Gift of Arthur N. Carter, 1936; 1938.
Item no. 94: Purchased from Warren Howell, 1966.
Item nos. 94a, 95: Transferred from John Haskell Kemble collection, 1997.
Item nos. 96-98: Purchased by the Library Collectors' Council from Michael Dawson, 2012.
Item nos. 39-41, 44, 93: Provenance unknown.
Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916) was born in 1829 in Oneonta, New York. In 1851, he migrated to Sacramento, California in the
company of businessman Collis P. Huntington and several other residents of Oneonta. He began his photographic career as an
apprentice to established San Francisco Bay area studio photographers Robert H. Vance (1825–1876) and James May Ford (c. 1827–1877).
Watkins photographed Yosemite for the first time in 1861. His large-scale images inspired President Abraham Lincoln and the
United States Congress to declare Yosemite the nation's first national preserve in 1864. By the end of the American Civil
War, the photographer had become one of the medium's leading lights, winning prestigious commissions and international awards.
Over the course of his career, Watkins operated studios at various Montgomery Street addresses in San Francisco. Around 1869,
he purchased Alfred A. Hart's stereographic negatives documenting the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. Watkins
subsequently published Hart's negatives under the series title: "Watkins Central Pacific Railroad."
Watkins suffered severe financial reverses in 1875, losing his negative inventory to competitor Isaiah H. Taber. From that
point onward, Watkins published negatives under the "New Series" heading.
In 1879, Watkins married Frances Henrietta Snead. The couple had two children, Julia (1881–1977) and Collis (1883–1965). By
the early 1890s, declining health forced Watkins to curtail his activities. He took his last major commission in 1894, photographing
the Phoebe Apperson Hearst residence, Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, in Pleasanton, California. The earthquake and fire of 1906
destroyed Watkins' San Francisco studio and its contents. Shortly thereafter, he entered the Napa State Asylum for the Insane
in Napa, California, where he died in 1916.
This is a collection of 61 mammoth plate photographs by Carleton Watkins made 1861-1880 in the American West, primarily California
and Nevada. The subject matter is varied and includes mining views in the Comstock district, Nevada; Yosemite Valley; Los
Angeles County ranches and agriculture; San Francisco's maritime commerce and stately residences; Salt Lake City, Utah; and
assorted landscape and coastal views. These photographs were acquired by the Huntington Library over several decades from
different sources.
One of the largest series of photographs depicts mining companies and mills in the Comstock district, Nevada in 1876, when
the region was in its greatest "bonanza" period. The landscape photographs depict the mine's wooden buildings and mills set
in canyons and along rivers, and include piles of wood, some equipment, and occasionally employees and their families. Watkins
traveled on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad to reach some sites, and railroad tracks are visible in some views. The mining
sites pictured are: Mexican Mill, Merrimac Mill, Brunswick Mill, Vivian Mill, Santiago Mill, Eureka Mill, Franklin Mill, Windfield
Mining Company, Land Mining Company, Empire State Mining Company, and Pacific Mining Company.
A series of 20 views of Yosemite Valley, made by Watkins in 1861 and 1865-66, feature waterfalls, granite walls and cliffs,
rivers and other scenery. Three views were made in the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees, where naturalist Galen Clark
lived in a cabin, seen in "Galen's Hospice" (item 50). Clark is also pictured in front of the "Grizzly Giant" sequoia in 1861,
and on a bridge over the Merced River.
Photographs in Los Angeles County depict ranches, orchards and agriculture in Pasadena and other parts of the San Gabriel
Valley. Besides individual residences (see contents list for names of owners), views include: a small community of houses
in Pasadena called the Indiana Colony; the "Twin Palms" in San Gabriel; Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel (built
1869); and the Sierra Madre Villa hotel at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
In San Francisco, there are three city views of houses in elite neighborhoods, taken 1862-1867. Two of these photographs,
the "Milton S. Latham Residence, Folsom Street" (item 97) and the "Coe-Raymond-Earle Residence, Rincon Hill" (item 98), were
undiscovered at the time of publishing the catalog raisonne (see Sources). The third photograph, "Residences of Mr. Robinson
and Rev. W. A. Scott, Rincon Hill" (item 96), is only known to exist in one other copy (Naef catalog: no. 340). There are
also three views of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company warehouse buildings and wharf, with ships seen at dock and in the bay.
The views include St. Mary's Hospital on Rincon Hill, and a distant view of the U.S. Marine Hospital.
The remaining photographs in the collection are: coastal views of Mendocino County and the Farallon Islands; landscapes of
the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington; a bird's-eye-view of Salt Lake City and the Mormon Tabernacle; and rock formations
in "Echo City from Witch Rocks, Utah."
The prints are all individually mounted and vary slightly in size, approximately 15 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches. Some are signed and
numbered in ink on the mount below the photograph, and some have titles and numbers written in pencil in what appears to be
Watkins' hand.
Carleton E. Watkins Mammoth Plate Photograph Albums:
Photographic Views of Kern County, California (137500); The Central Pacific Railroad and Views Adjacent (137501); Summits
of the Sierra (137502); and Arizona and Views Adjacent to the Southern Pacific Railroad (137503)
Carleton E. Watkins Mammoth Plate Photographs of California Missions
(photCL Watkins 1-38)
Carleton E. Watkins Mammoth Plate Photographs of Yosemite, New Almaden Mine and the Mendocino Coast, California:
(379010)
Carleton E. Watkins Photograph Collection
(photCL 74)
Carleton E. Watkins Stereograph Collection
(photST Watkins)
Watkins, Carleton E. Scenes in Yosemite photograph album
(photCL 409)
Watkins, Carleton E. Sunny Slope. San Gabriel, Cal. photograph album
(photCL 522)
Watkins, Carleton E. Album of the Yo-semite Valley, California (New York: D. Appleton, 1866)
(406039)
The photographs are arranged into 5 series by subject:
- Series 1. Los Angeles County (9 photographs: 39, 40, 41, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93)
- Series 2. San Francisco and the Pacific Coast (10 photographs: 94, 94a, 95, 96, 97, 98, 42, 43, 46, 45)
- Series 3. Yosemite Valley (20 photographs: 47, 49, 50, 51, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87)
- Series 4. Comstock district, Nevada – Mining views (20 photographs: 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71)
- Series 5. Utah (2 photographs: 44, 48)
Hult-Lewis, Christine.
The Mining Photographs of Carleton Watkins, 1858-1891, and the Origins of Corporate Photography. PhD diss., (Boston University, 2011).
Naef, Weston J. and Christine Hult-Lewis.
Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011)
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Agriculture -- California
Dwellings -- California -- San Francisco
Giant sequoia
Hotels -- California
Mills and mill-work -- Nevada
Mines and mineral resources -- Nevada
Ranches -- California
Shipping -- California -- San Francisco
Silver mines and mining -- Nevada
Steamboats -- History -- 19th century
Farallon Islands (Calif.)
Mariposa Grove (Calif.)
Pacific Coast (Calif.)
Pasadena (Calif.) -- Photographs
Salt Lake City (Utah)
San Francisco (Calif.) -- Buildings, structures, etc
San Gabriel (Calif.) -- Photographs
Yosemite Valley (Calif.)
Church buildings -- California -- 19th century
Photographs
Albumen prints
Mammoth plate
Clark, Galen, 1814-1910
Latham, Milton S. (Milton Slocum), 1827-1882 -- Homes and haunts
Kewen, E. J. C. (Edward John Cage), 1825-1879 -- Homes and haunts
Rose, L. J. (Leonard John), 1827-1899 -- Homes and haunts
Tabernacle (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Pacific Mail Steamship Company