William Lewis Sachtleben papers, 1890-1895

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Summary

Creators:
Sachtleben, William Lewis
Abstract:
Collection consists of photographs of a bicycle journey across Asia, the originals of which some were used for his and Thomas Gaskell Allen Jr's 1894 publication on the same subject.
Extent:
0.4 linear feet (1 box)
Language:
Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], William Lewis Sachtleben Papers (Collection 1841). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection consists of photographs taken in 1891 covering William Lewis Sachtleben and Thomas Gaskell Allen Jr.'s winter stay in Athens and part of the journey that followed from Istanbul to Tashkent. The circular format photographs were taken with a Kodak box camera which was one of the first cameras available to amateur photographers (the Kodak, the No. 1, or the No. 2). Folder 5 and 7 of this collection include Sachtleben's photographs of the aftermath of the October 30, 1895 Armenian massacre in Erzurum.

Biographical / historical:

William Lewis Sachtleben was an American long-distance cyclist who rode across Asia from Istanbul to Peking in 1891 to 1892 with Thomas Gaskell Allen Jr., his classmate from Washington University. Their journey had actually begun the day after they graduated from college, when they travelled to New York and on to Liverpool. In all they travelled 15,044 miles by bicycle, "the longest continuous land journey ever made around the world" as reported in their book Across Asia on a bicycle (1895).

On Wednesday, October 30, 1895, Armenians were massacred in Erzurum and the surrounding Armenian villages. American journalist William Sachtleben happened to be in Erzurum at that time, investigating the disappearance of American cyclist Frank Lenz. During the massacre Sachtleben was in the American mission building, where over 200 Armenians fled for protection. Sachtleben witnessed the aftermath of the massacre; he took photographs of the victims in the Armenian Cemetery and wrote three lengthy and detailed letters about the massacre that were published, unsigned and attributed to an Occasional Correspondent, in the London Times on November 16, 27 and December 9.

Processing information:

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Physical location:
Held at UCLA Library Special Collections. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], William Lewis Sachtleben Papers (Collection 1841). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
Website