Description
The Fahey-Sloan Collection includes family history materials and
photographs. Several photo albums created by Elizabeth Haskell Sloan document
the activities of the Yosemite Logging Company (1914-1917). Other albums
created by Robert Fahey depict the activities of the Oakdale "Bronco Boys" club
(1930s-1950s), his World War II career and his research on the logging industry
in the southern Sierra. There is also an album of the Panama Pacific
International Exposition (1915).
Background
Elizabeth Haskell Sloan (b. 1870) came to California (c1895) after
working as a stenographer for the Chicago Exposition, the Armour Institute and
other businesses in the Chicago area during the mid-1890s. Although she had
come initially to help her invalid sister, Clara, with the latter's three
daughters, the sister soon died and Elizabeth Haskell helped place the
daughters in foster homes. She then worked as University President Benjamin Ide
Wheeler's secretary while attending the University of California (1900-1904).
Sloan subsequently graduated from the Pratt Institute Library School (1906) and
returned as a librarian to the University of California (1907-1914). She
married her dead sister's husband, William Haskell Sloan, and moved with him to
the Yosemite region where he was Superintendent of the Yosemite Logging Company
(1914-1917). When Sloan became ill due to over work, they moved to Irvington,
Alameda County, where they became prune farmers. After Sloan's death Elizabeth
worked for the Pacific Rural Press and as associate editor for a local
newspaper. One of William Sloan's daughters, Lilly, married a member of the
Fahey Family (c1913).