Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Preston Sawyer collection
- Dates:
- 1847-1968
- Creators:
- Sawyer, Preston, 1899-1968
- Abstract:
- This collection contains biographical material, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and realia created or collected by the Sawyer family of Santa Cruz dating from 1847 to the 1960's.
- Extent:
- 89 Linear Feet 119 boxes
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
Preston Sawyer Collection. MS 82. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains biographical material, correspondence, and photographs from the Sawyer family of Santa Cruz, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper. In addition there is a fair amount of ephemera and realia (3 dimensional material) pertaining to local Santa Cruz history, as well as history of California and some of national interest. The bulk of the ephemera consists of vintage postcards and postal exchanges, advertisements by Santa Cruz businesses, news and realia of Boy Scouts and boys' clubs from Santa Cruz and San Francisco, Worlds' Fairs and expositions. Of special interest is the material from the WWI and WWII era. See each series scope and content notes for details.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Le Moyne Preston Sawyer, collector, photographer, proofreader and historical writer, was born in Santa Cruz on December 6, 1899. He was the son of Frank and Gertrude Fields Sawyer. He had one sibling, a brother, Robin Ariel.
Preston and Ariel's father, Frank, worked at several occupations, including leather and saddle making, shoe repair, and candy maker. His wife Gertrude Fields Sawyer, encouraged writing and collecting, while her sister Clara Fields Gardner encouraged their traveling. Ariel ran the Sawyer Tile Company. Both boys graduated from Santa Cruz High School.
As a youth Preston was a newsboy and had an interest in stamp and postmark collecting. Over the years he amassed a large collection of first and last day post marks, stamps, and cancellations from numerous California post offices.
As a young man, Preston Sawyer worked as a movie extra in the very early film industry located in Santa Cruz. A prolific amateur photographer, he snapped hundreds of pictures of movie stars and the sets while waiting for work. In addition to taking his own photographs he collected pictures covering early Santa Cruz and the surrounding areas. The vast amount of his photographs reside in Santa Cruz County Historic Photographs.
In 1935 he was hired at the Santa Cruz Sentinel as a proofreader, a job he held for almost three decades, except for a stint in the Army during World War II. In 1948, he began a weekly feature "Santa Cruz Yesterdays" which appeared in the Sunday edition. The articles were based on his extensive collection of photographs and reference materials, many culled from local second-hand shops he visited on his lunch hours. By 1955, approximately 364 historical pictorial stories had been printed. Sawyer retired from the Santa Cruz Sentinel in 1962.
In the late 1960's Sawyer's treasure trove of Santa Cruz and California history, collected over the course of his life, was purchased by and split between the Santa Cruz Public Library and the University Library at UCSC. The reference materials and books went to the Public Library while the University received the postal collections and correspondence, as well as photographs, glass and newspaper plates, and other material.
Preston Sawyer died in October of 1968 in a rest home in Watsonville, after a five year illness.
- Acquisition information:
- Purchased from Ariel Sawyer.
- Processing information:
-
This finding aid was revised in the Reparative Archival Redescription Project in 2021-2022. Previous versions of this finding aid are available upon request.
Processed by Maureen Carey and Debra Roussopoulos. Additional accruals (box 117- ) processed by Kate Dundon.
- Arrangement:
-
The material is arranged into 5 series: Biographical, Correspondence, Photographic material, Ephemera, and Realia.
- Physical location:
- Collection stored off-site at NRLF: Advance notice is required for access.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-06-13 14:30:38 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs. Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
- Preferred citation:
-
Preston Sawyer Collection. MS 82. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Location of this collection:
-
Special Collections and Archives, University Library1156 High StreetSanta Cruz, CA 95064, US
- Contact:
- (831) 459-2547