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Western Survey Expeditions of 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874
BANC PIC 1905.17116-.17119--STER
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Collection Title: Western Survey Expeditions of
Date: 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874
Collection Number: BANC PIC 1905.17116-.17119--STER
Extent:
150 photographic prints ; stereograph, albumen ; 10 x 18 cm.
150 digital objects
Photographers:
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
and
William Bell
Repository:
The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Languages Represented:
English
Collection is available for use.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish photographs must be submitted
in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library
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.
Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted
to research and educational purposes.
[Identification of item],
Western Survey Expeditions of 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874 , BANC PIC 1905.17116-.17119--STER, 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.
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 19xx.273--PIC :
Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian (U.S.).
Title: New Mexico Photographs from the 1873 Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 19xx.055--ffALB:
Title: Photographs Taken During the U. S. Geological Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, 1871-1873,
by Timothy H. O'Sullivan and William Bell
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 19xx.089--STER:
Title: Stereoviews of the U. S. Geographical Survey Expedition West of the 100th Meridian of 1871,
by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 19xx.090--STER:
Title: Stereoviews of the U. S. Geographical Survey Expedition West of the 100th Meridian of 1872,
by William Bell
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 19xx.091--STER:
Title: Stereoviews of the U. S. Geographical Survey Expedition West of the 100th Meridian of 1873,
by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Unknown.
Timothy H. O'Sullivan was born in 1840. He learned photography at the New York gallery of Mathew Brady, and accompanied Brady
on a Civil War photography assignment. In 1863 O'Sullivan left Brady to establish his own gallery in Washington D.C. He published
a series of "Photographic Incidents of the War" (1862-1865). In 1867 he joined the Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel,
led by Clarence King, which was the first of the four great post-war surveys carried out by the United States Government.
This expedition explored the area from the eastern edge of the Sierras and across the great Basin to the front range of the
Rocky Mountains.
After three years as King's photographer, O'Sullivan was appointed Photographer to the Darien Surveying Expedition in 1870
by the Secretary of the Navy. The purpose of this expedition was to report to the government on possible routes for a ship
canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He returned to the West in 1871 with the Geographical and Geological Explorations
and Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, commanded by Lieutenant George M. Wheeler of the Corps of Engineers. The party surveyed
Owens Valley, Death Valley, and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Most of O'Sullivan's photographs during this
expedition were ruined in transit. O'Sullivan was transferred back to a Clarence King survey in 1872, to a team that went
to Wyoming. In the winter of 1872-1873, O'Sullivan printed two sets of his King survey photographs for an exhibition at the
World's Fair in Vienna in 1873. In 1873 O'Sullivan accompanied Wheeler once again, this time to Arizona and New Mexico, photographing
the mysterious Native American ruins of Canyon de Chelly, San Miguel Church in Santa Fe, and Zuni Pueblo. In 1874 he visited
the West for the last time, working in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and Idaho. He became Photographer to the U.S.
Treasury Department in 1880. O'Sullivan died of tuberculosis in Staten Island in 1882.
(Sources: Dingus, Rich.
The Photographic Artifacts of Timothy O'Sullivan. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1982, pp. 4, 12-13; Newhall, Beaumont and Nancy.
T. H. O'Sullivan: Photographer. Rochester, N.Y.: The George Eastman House, in collaboration with The Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1966.)
William Bell was born in Liverpool, England in 1830. His career as a photographer began as a daguerreotyper working for John
Keenan beginning in 1848. In 1852 he opened his own daguerreotype gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1873 he took on
William H. Rau as an assistant photographer and later became his partner (1870s). Bell's photographic collections include
the Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian
Expedition of 1872, and
Expeditions of 1871, 1872, 1873 and 1874. He died in 1910 in Philadelphia.
(Source: Treadwell, T. K. and William C. Darrah.
Stereographers of the World. [Byran, Texas] : National Stereoscopic Association, c1994, v. 2.)
This survey expedition stereograph collection consists of 150 albumen stereographs taken of and for the Geographical Surveys
West of the 100th Meridian from 1871-1874. The publisher is the War Department Corps of Engineers, U.S.A. The U.S. Geographical
and Geological Surveys were implemented for the purpose of surveying, mapping, and studying the vast expanses of the previously
unknown western landscapes of the United States. Timothy H. O'Sullivan and William Bell were the official photographers of
the surveys.
The collection is distributed over four accession numbers as follows: 1905.17116 consists of 50 stereograph views taken by
both photographers from the 1871-1874 expeditions, and includes images of Zuni, Navajo, Apache, and Ute Indians, Canyon de
Chelly and the Grand Canyon, and other sites in New Mexico and Arizona. 1905.17117 consists of 23 stereograph images taken
by O'Sullivan from the 1871 expedition, and includes images of Black Canyon and the Grand Canyon, and other New Mexico and
Arizona sites. 1905.17118 consists of 39 stereograph views taken by Bell from the 1872 expedition, and includes images of
the Canyon of Kanab Creek, the Grand Canyon, and various New Mexico and Arizona sites. 1905.17119 consists of 38 stereograph
views taken by O'Sullivan from the 1873 expedition, and includes images of Zuni, Navajo, and Apache Indians, and Canyon de
Chelly. Printed captions on the backs of the stereographs are partially reprinted in the container listing.