Rare Books
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Visual Materials
The Southern California Edison collection of negatives and photographs consists of approximately 80,000 images created and acquired by the company from approximately 1883-1989, with the bulk of the collection covering 1910-1960. Formats include glass and film negatives, photo cards, loose photographs, photograph albums, lantern slides, and related materials. Most of the images were produced by Edison staff and contract photographers to document Edison facilities, products, operations, activities, and employees and for the purposes of education, advertising, training, and liability. The SCE collection offers a range of subjects far broader than the company's original intent. In addition to infrastructural images of transmission lines, steam plants, substations, equipment, vehicles, and hydroelectric plants, the company captured the uses of light and electricity in its myriad capacities, including night lighting of streets, billboards, storefronts, and gas stations; electric kitchens and appliances in domestic and industrial settings such as restaurants and cafes; agricultural innovations in the dairy and poultry industries; lighting for recreational uses such as swimming pools, bathhouses, tennis courts; golf courses; office work; and accident scenes and disasters, particularly the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928.
photCL SCE
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Rare Books
59031
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Visual Materials
The Aswan Dam Photographs collection contains 28 albums containing more than 1750 black-and-white photographs (most approximately 8 x 10 in. format), documenting the construction of the first Aswan Dam and Asyut Barrage from 1899 to 1902, the first dam heightening from 1907 to 1912, the Isna Barrage from 1907 to 1909, and the second heightening from 1930 to 1933. The images chiefly chronicle progress at the construction sites and depict laborers, masonry work, excavating, the transportation of materials and equipment, and the building of the locks, buttresses, gates, canals, and bridges, with many views of the Nile River. In addition there are images of repairs to the temple at Philae (in Albums 1, 3b, 4, and 12), and some photographs of ceremonies including the H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught laying the foundation stone on February 29, 1908 (Album 10, pages 8-9), and the laying of the final stone with Abbas II Hilmi, the Khedive of Egypt, on February 9, 1909 (Album 5, page 24).The collection consists of both nondescript albums with affixed photographs accompanied by typed or handwritten captions, as well as more formal presentation albums, which include inscriptions of W. L. Lowe Brown, resident engineer at the Asyut Barrage (Album 1); John Aird, whose company constructed the dam (Albums 2, 6, and 8) Murdoch MacDonald, chief engineer beginning in 1902 (Album 3); While most of the albums are limited to photographs and captions, Album 1 and 2 have an eight-page printed preface by William E. Garstin and Albums 5 and 6 have two introductory pages of printed explanatory notes by Murdoch MacDonald. Photographers engaged in documenting the construction and heightening projects were D.S. George (construction of the Aswan Dam and first heightening), F. Fiorillo (first heightening), A. Gianny (viewing of Aswan Dam), A. Marques (first heightening), and other unidentified photographers. Within the materials, there are variant spellings of Aswan including Assuan and Asswan.
photCL Burndy 1
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