Collection Guide
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General Subjects Photography Collection
PC-GS: Box [number]
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
California Historical Society
Title: General Subjects Photography collection,
Creator:
Various
Identifier/Call Number: PC-GS: Box [number]
Physical Description:
94 boxes, 12 oversize boxes
(ca. 23,150 images)
Date (inclusive): 1850s-1980s
Date (bulk): (Bulk 1870s-1970s)
Physical Description: lb:
Abstract: Contains photographs and picture
postcards depicting scenes of California places, people, activities, and cultural resources
from the 1850s to the 1980s.
Physical Location: Please consult repository.
Language of Material: English.
- California Historical Society
- North Baker Research Library
- 678 Mission Street
- San Francisco, California 94105-4014
- Phone: (415) 357-1848, ext. 20
- Fax: (415) 357-1850
- Email: reference@calhist.org
- URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
- Processed by:
- Trina Lopez, Wendy Welker, Brenda Baldwin, and Mary Morganti
- Date Completed:
- September 2003
- Encoded by:
- UCSC OAC Unit
CHS is not taking appointments for research at this time. Please check the Library's website updates:
https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/collections/north-baker-research-library/
Copyright has not been assigned to the California Historical Society. All requests for
permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director
of Research Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the California
Historical Society 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.
General Subjects Photography collection, PC-GS: Box [number], California Historical
Society, Photography Collection.
Consult repository
Contains photographs and picture postcards depicting scenes of California places, people,
activities, and cultural resources, mainly from the 1870s to the 1980s. Each listing
represents a file containing from one to more than fifty images. Some files may also include
a small number of non-photographic reproductions and prints depicting images from as early
as the 1770s.
Includes images depicting California's agricultural economy (crops, livestock, ranching,
etc.), industry (fishing, lumbering, etc.), and mining operations, as well as common plants
(cactus, redwoods, etc.) and animals (bear, coyote, etc.). Images of the California missions
provide the earliest views in the collection. Other scenes of the California landscape
reflect the wide variety of the state's natural features (lakes, mountains, rivers,
waterfalls, etc.), and the built environment as evidenced through architecture (commercial,
domestic, and public) and transportation (automotive, rail, water, etc.), and depicted in
the art of individual artists. Also includes images of people engaged in community and
cultural activities as members of organizations (Freemasons, Sierra Club, etc.), or
participating in recreation (amusement parks, cycling, dance, swimming, etc.), theater, and
social groups (Chinese, Hispanic Americans, Italians, hippies, women, etc.). The largest
segment of the collection concerns the work of California photographers (chiefly portraits).
These have been divided by the city in which they chiefly worked, and described in further
detail as individual catalog records. Images included here compliment those found in the
California Counties Photography Collection.
Organized alphabetically by subject.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Agricultural laborers -- California -- Pictorial works
Grape industry -- California -- Pictorial works
Redwoods--Humboldt County--Photographs
Missions -- California -- Pictorial works
Orchards--California--Pictorial works
Chinese -- California -- Pictorial works
Photographic prints
Landscape photographs
Photographic postcards