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Finding Aid to Valley of the Yosemite, Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Mariposa Grove of Mammoth Trees by Eadweard Muybridge,
1872
BANC PIC 1962.019--ffALB
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Collection Title: Valley of the Yosemite, Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Mariposa Grove of Mammoth Trees by Eadweard Muybridge
Date: 1872
Collection Number: BANC PIC 1962.019--ffALB
Photographer:
Muybridge, Eadweard
Extent:
47 albumen photoprints, 17 x 21 1/2" mounted to 24 1/2 x 29"
45 digital objects
Repository: The Bancroft Library.
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Mammoth plate views of Sierra Nevada scenery, primarily of the Yosemite Valley. Includes one view of the Mariposa giant sequoia
grove.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Originals restricted. Use viewing prints with call number BANC PIC 1962.019-PIC
Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction
of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions,
privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond
that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .
[Identification of item], Valley of the Yosemite, Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Mariposa Grove of Mammoth Trees by Eadweard
Muybridge, 1872, BANC PIC 1962.019--ffALB, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Digital Representations Available
Digital representations of selected original pictorial materials are available in the list of materials below. Digital image
files were prepared from selected Library originals by the Library Photographic Service. Library originals were copied onto
35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD
files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog
Bradley & Rulofson
Giant sequoia--Photographs
Wilderness areas--California--Photographs
Mariposa Grove (Calif.)--Pictorial works
Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.)--Pictorial works
Yosemite National Park (Calif.)--Pictorial works
Albumen prints
Mammoth plates
The Valley of the Yosemite pictorial collection was acquired by The Bancroft Library in 1962. Its provenance is unknown.
Born Edward James Muggeride in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, April 9, 1830, Muybridge came to the U.S. in the early 1850s
and opened a bookstore in San Francisco in 1855. After being seriously injured in a fall from a stagecoach, he returned to
England, where he turned to photography. He came back to San Francisco in the late 1860s and did photographic work for the
U.S Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Muybridge achieved great fame through his photographic studies of animal and human locomotion published in such works as
Animal Locomotion (11 vols., 1887) and
The Human Figure in Motion (1901) . His studies began in 1872 when he was hired by railroad magnate Leland Stanford to prove that all four hooves of a horse left the ground during a trot. In the course of these studies he invented devices
to trip the shutters of a series of cameras in order to record animals in motion. He later developed a viewer called the zoopraxiscope,
which allowed runs of motion photographs to be seen as if moving. These projects are now considered the forerunners of modern
motion pictures.
Aside from his motion studies, Muybridge was known for the wide variety of photographs he took of scenes in California and
western North America. These included stereo views of Alaska, Canada, California cities, Mexico and Central America. He gained
notoriety in 1874 when he murdered his wife's lover and was acquitted of the crime in a much publicized trial. After a period
of exile he returned to San Francisco in 1876, and in the following two years he produced three massive panoramas of the City
taked from Nob Hill.
Based on Harris, David.
Eadweard Muybridge and the Photographic Panorama of San Francisco, 1850-1880. (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, c1993) ; and Hart, James D.
A Companion to California. (New York : Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 292-293.
This collection is an imcomplete set (45 of 51) of mammoth plate albumen prints taken by Muybridge in 1872 and published by
Bradley & Rulofson at 429 Montgomery Street, San Francisco during subsequent years. The collection includes duplicate prints
of numbers 9 and 51, bringing the total number of prints to 47. Thirty-nine of the scenes are of the Yosemite Valley, five
are of the Sierra Nevada mountains and one is of the Mariposa Grove of mammoth trees. The set is made up of prints from various
editions; therefore some prints lack the photographer's number or have a variant caption typeface. Captions for the lacking
prints are supplied by Bradley & Rulofson's
Catalogue of Photographic Views Illustrating the Yosemite, Mammoth Trees, Geyser Springs, and other Remarkable and Interesting
Scenery of the Far West
(1873) . The Bancroft Library's prints are numbered according to the photographer's number in this catalog. Therefore there are gaps
in the library's numbering of the prints.