Biographical / Historical
Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Preferred Citation
Scope and Content
Arrangement
Identifier/Call Number: PC RM Watkins
Title: Carleton E. Watkins photograph collection
Date (inclusive): 1856-1885
Physical Description:
65.25 Linear Feet
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
California Historical Society
Creator:
Watkins, Carleton E., 1829-1916
Abstract: Carleton E. Watkins was a 19th century
photographer based in San Francisco who made his name documenting the rapid growth of the
American West, and whose name is frequently associated with the birth of the photographic
medium – particularly with early landscape photography. This collection contains albumen
prints taken throughout his career, between the years of 1856 and 1885. The bulk of
photographs taken depict the Yosemite Valley and MariposaS Grove, and were taken at various
points between 1861 and 1881. It includes large-format mammoth plate photographs and smaller
photographic prints, as well as more commercial formats such as stereographs, cabinet cards,
and boudoir cards. The photographs depict a variety of subjects, from San Francisco to
various locations around the Western United States, as well as images of prominent visitors
to San Francisco, and photographs of the homes of some of Watkins's wealthy patrons, among
them bankers, railroad magnates, and politicians.
Language of Material: Collection materials are in
English.
Biographical / Historical
Carleton E. Watkins was a 19th century photographer based in San Francisco who made his
name documenting the rapid growth of the American West. His majestic photos of the Yosemite
Valley, in Mariposa County, California, are said to have influenced Abraham Lincoln's 1864
Yosemite Land Grant - the first act of Congress to designate federal land for public use. It
is often referred to as "the birth of the national parks system." Watkins was the oldest of
eight children, born to a carpenter and an innkeeper in Oneonta, New York, on November 11,
1829. He moved west with childhood friend Collis Huntington during the Gold Rush in 1851. He
later took a job in San Francisco working next door to daguerreotypist Robert H. Vance, who
eventually hired Watkins and taught him the basics of photography. Watkins probably began
his photography career next year, in 1855, when he photographed the mines at New Idrea and
New Almaden, as well as Mission Santa Clara. Watkins first appeared in the San Francisco
directory in 1861, listed as a daguerrean operator at 425 Montgomery Street. It was also the
year that he first travelled to Yosemite to photograph it – a difficult undertaking that
required nearly two thousand pounds of equipment, including at least a dozen mules,
flammable chemicals, a stereoscopic camera, an oversize mammoth-plate camera, and 18 x 22
inch glass plates. On the strength of this work, Watkins was hired by the California State
Geological Survey from 1865-1866 to further document the Yosemite region. These photographs
of Yosemite (which exposed many Easterners to previously-unseen parts of the West) made
Watkins famous, and in 1867 he opened his lavish Yo Semite Art Gallery in San Francisco. He
also travelled to the Pacific Northwest, photographing Oregon, British Columbia, and the
Columbia River – the first photographs ever taken of the region. Despite his remarkable
success as a photographer and his many wealthy patrons, Watkins was a poor businessman and,
following the financial panic of 1873, lost his gallery, as well as his photographic
negatives, to J.J. Cook, Isaiah W. Taber, and Thomas H. Boyd. Taber then began issuing
prints of Watkins images with his name attached and without credit to Watkins. Watkins's
"New Series" of photographs were created to replace some of the images he lost. In 1876,
Watkins travelled to Virginia City, Nevada to visit the Comstock Lode, and it is here that
he is rumored to have met his future wife, Frances Sneed, who first became his assistant. In
1879, on his 50th birthday, Watkins married Sneed, who was 22 at the time. They had two
children, named Julia and Collis. In 1894, Watkins began to experience health problems, and
was unable complete a photographic commission. He also began to experience vision loss, and
by 1903 was almost completely blind. In 1906, while in the process of negotiating the sale
and transfer of his photographic archive (including his mammoth glass plate negatives) to
Stanford University, the 1906 earthquake, and subsequent fire, struck. Watkins's studio was
lost. When his poor health made it difficult for his family to care for him, he was placed
in the Napa State Hospital for the Insane. Of Watkins's death, on June 23, 1916, Peter
Palmquist writes: "He is thought to have been buried in the hospital graveyard, but no
tombstone marks his grave."
Information taken from:
Naef, Weston and Christine Hult-Lewis.
Carleton Watkins: The
Complete Mammoth Photographs.
Getty Publications, 2011.
Palmquist, Peter E.
Carleton E. Watkins: Photographer of the
American West.
University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Whitney, JD. "A Watkins Chronology."
California History.
Vol. 57 No. 3, Fall (1978): 264.
The Photographs of Carleton Watkins. Accessed November 23, 2018.
www.carletonwatkins.org.
"Carleton Watkins." The J. Paul Getty Museum. Accessed November 23, 2018.
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1953/carleton-watkins-american-1829-1916/
Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Materials in this collection are in the public domain in the United States. Permission to
publish or reproduce is not required.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Collection is comprised of multiple donations from various donors. Please see collection
files for more information.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item, date]; Carleton E. Watkins photograph collection, PC-RM-Watkins;
[box number, folder number]; California Historical Society.
Scope and Content
The collection consists of 176 albumen mammoth prints (including 2 panoramas – one of San
Francisco and one of Yosemite), 137 photographic prints (including 6 cyanotypes), 4
photograph albums, 409 complete stereographs, 10 partial stereographs, and 67 glass
stereographs. The collection also includes 101 boudoir cards, 74 cabinet cards, and 33
cartes-de-visite. The bulk of photographs taken depict the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa
Grove, and were taken at various points between 1861 and 1881. The collection includes
photographs of various mining operations, including Las Mariposas Mining Estate, as well as
the New Idria and New Almaden mines. There are also photographs documenting railway building
and industry, including images of the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, and of
the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. Watkins travelled extensively around the
West, documenting Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and British
Columbia, as well as various California counties across the state. He also photographed
plants and flowers native to California and the Southwest, as well as natural features such
as Mount Shasta and the geysers in Sonoma County. There are numerous photos of California
missions from throughout the state. There are photographs of the homes of prominent
Californians, such as the Thurlow Lodge album (Governor of California Milton Latham's home),
and photographs of the homes of bankers Darius O. Mills and William C. Ralston, among
others. The collection also includes images of the Sierra Madre Villa in Pasadena and the
Hotel Del Monte in Monterey. The cabinet cards and cartes-de-visite feature portraits of
artists, writers, and professors such as Louis Agassiz, Galen Clark, Albert Bierstadt, and
William Cullen Bryant. There are also portraits of Japanese businessmen Tomomi Iwakura and
Kaikichi M. Hirose. There are photographs of architectural plans, artwork held by local
museums, and an album photos of drawings by Virgil Williams. There is a great depth and
breadth of images of San Francisco, Watkins's home for much of his life. These include
images of Alcatraz Island and the Farallon Islands, as well as views of the city taken from
various vantage points. There are photographs of major intersections and important
buildings, like the Palace Hotel and the Bank of California. There are also photographs of
local industry, such as the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the San Francisco Woolen
Factory, as well as of photos of attractions like Woodward's Gardens. The collection also
includes two photographs of Carleton Watkins taken by other photographers.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged by format into eight series and, from there, are organized into
subseries according to subject (usually location). Materials in each subseries are arranged
chronologically. Because Watkins photographed Yosemite at multiple times, on different
trips, these photographs are organized according to the "CEW" (for Carleton E. Watkins)
negative numbers assigned by Weston Naef and Christine Lewis in their book
Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs (Getty
Publications, 2011), and were given titles that match those in the book. These CEW numbers
are based on numbers that Watkins assigned to nearly all of his negatives, and which were
published as a list by Isaiah Taber around 1883. Many of the thematic groupings from the
book have also been used to organize the collection. Titles and dates have been taken from
the backs of photographs when available. When they were not, they were supplied by the
archivist.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Albumen prints
Mammoth plates
Photograph albums
Cabinet photographs
Boudoir card photographs
Stereographs
Cartes de visite
Portrait photographs
Mines and mineral resources -- California -- Pictorial works
Plants -- California -- Pictorial works
Williams, Virgil Macey, 1830-1886
Agassiz, Louis, 1807-1873 -- Portraits
Bierstadt, Albert, 1830-1902 -- Portraits
Bloomer, Hiram Reynolds, 1845-1911 -- Portraits
Brookes, Samuel Marsden, 1816-1892 -- Portraits
Davidson, George, 1825-1911 -- Portraits
Hallidie, Andrew Smith, 1836-1900 -- Portraits
Iwakura, Tomomi, 1825-1883 -- Portraits
Mills, Darius O. (Darius Ogden) -- Portraits
O'Brien, William Shoney, 1825 or 6-1878 -- Portraits
Ralston, William Chapman, 1826-1875 -- Portraits
Stebbins, Horatio, 1821-1902 -- Portraits
Walker, James, 1819-1889 -- Portraits