Manuscripts

Obadiah Ethelbert Baker papers

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Description: Letters, manuscripts, (including approximately 200 of Baker's poems and 14 volumes of Civil War journals), documents, photographs, and newspaper clippings.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1859-1923.
Call number: mssBakeroe
Creator: Baker, Obadiah Ethelbert (1838-1923)(Opens in new tab)
Additional description: Also discussed are family news, business and financial affairs; Baker's teaching experience and his brother's trip to California in 1876.
Provenance: Purchased at Argonaut Book Shop, July 1966.

Looe Baker and Eliza Wardell Baker family papers

Manuscripts

An archive of the Baker family of New Jersey; consisting of family letters, manuscripts, legal documents, genealogical material, photographs, a letter book, two volumes, and ephemera. The correspondence falls predominately into two sections. The first section includes the letters between Looe and Eliza Wardell Baker, beginning with their friendship in 1799, through their courtship and after their 1805 marriage when Looe was absent from home on long business trips. Their loving correspondence covers family and domestic concerns, the cotton industry, and current events. The letters describe life in Natchez, local and national politics, the New Madrid earthquakes, and the War of 1812. The second section, and the bulk of the correspondence, concern William Chapman Baker; these letters include those dealing with his business interests, his many children, siblings, cousins and other extended family members, and his genealogical research both in the United States and England. The manuscripts include memoirs and diaries, poems, political and personal essays, a commonplace book and Eliza Wardell Baker's "Jersey Girl" columns. A large amount of the early letters and manuscripts have some damage, with loss of text, but otherwise the material is in excellent condition.

mssBakerL

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Robert Symington Baker papers

Manuscripts

The collection contains letters and documents related to Robert Symington Baker's involvement with petroleum and sheep and wool industries in California (1866-1888), mining interests in California and Utah (1877-1879), the city of Santa Monica (1877-1879), and the Ranchos Jurupa, Santa Monica, San Vicente, and Temescal. Significant persons represented in the collection include: Arturo Bandini, Robert Symington Baker, Edward Fitzgerald Beale, Simeon Porter Christy, Charles Henry Forbes, Sanford Lyon, Alfred Robinson, John Henry Wise, and Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker. There are also some materials related to the firm of Christy & Wise and to the Baker Block, which was built upon the site of El Palacio, Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker's home with Able Stearns.

mssBK

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Baker family papers

Manuscripts

The Manuscripts series contains William A. Baker's diaries from 1864-1866, as well as the diaries his granddaughter, Irma Garner, kept during her college years (1929-1931). It also holds ledger/account books, sermon notes, reports for Harold P. Richards from the U.S. Department of Interior division of Grazing in Salt Lake City, Utah, and other financial documents. The Correspondence series is primarily related to various members of the Baker family with a bulk of the letters associated with Irma Garner. Furthermore, over forty letters are from family friend, Chris Connor, to Irma Garner. The Photograph series is composed entirely of photographs, photograph albums, and a video. They are arranged in alphabetical order and are mostly grouped together by family (i.e. Baker family, Garner family, etc.), or other common theme. There is one folder dedicated to Irma Garner, the Baker cabin/ranch, Fannie Fain Baker, and Denver Silar Garner. Box 5 contains a video interview of Irma Garner. The Ephemera series includes newspaper clippings, a birth certificate, a marriage certificate programs, receipts, books, empty envelopes, a wallet, and redwood from Big Pine, California. The oversized folder is connected to this box as it has four newspapers that have articles that were of interest to the Baker family.

mssBaker family papers

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Ephraim Baker notebook

Manuscripts

The volume contains various transcriptions from medical books and journals. The topics encompass all medical care and the functions of organs. There is some emphasis on child and infant care. There is one page detailing Ephraim Baker's activities for a short period of time in 1789. There are also a few pages of sums and numbers, but no indication as to what they refer.

mssHM 74096

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Mildred E. Baker Travel Scrapbook Collection

Visual Materials

This collection contains thirteen scrapbooks chiefly containing narratives, snapshots, and clippings documenting summer canyoneering, camping, and tourism trips to the American Southwest, the Colorado River, the Canadian Rockies, and Wyoming by Mildred E. Baker in the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as volumes related to Baker's activities and interest in bookbinding, poetry, and the Woodcraft League of America in Upstate New York with bookbinder John F. Grabau in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Most of these volumes reflect the participation of two Baker's friends from Buffalo: Florence A. Huck and Katherine Crisp, who frequently traveled with Baker and were also involved in bookbinding activities. Baker's scrapbooks follow a general pattern: they include typescript narratives describing her trips illustrated with her own snapshots and handwritten captions, as well as clippings from magazines and newspapers, occasional bits of poetry, and printed ephemera. Most of the travel volumes include lists of identified flowers, shrubs, trees, ferns, and birds seen on the trip, reflecting Baker's interests in botany and ornithology. Many of the volumes also have additional printed items laid in, with some dating through the early 1970s. All of the volumes are bound in decorative bindings stamped "Grabau," and most have marbled paper over the pasteboards. Volumes 1-2 and 4-5 reflect Baker's experiences chiefly at Sunset Hill, the summer home and artist's retreat of bookbinder John F. Grabau, near Buffalo, New York, presumably as part of the "Ojenta tribe" of the Woodcraft League of America. These volumes include poetry and photographs of the landscape, camping and other outdoor outings and group events, and bookbinding, including images of binding specimens by both Grabau and Baker. Many of the volumes document Baker's trips to the American Southwest, including her experience as one of the first women to raft the full-length of the Colorado River as part of the 1940 "Nevills Expedition" led by Norman D. Nevills. Her scrapbook of this trip (volume 11) includes photographs of Nevills and his wife, Doris Nevills, and fellow participants including mining engineer John S. Southworth of Glendale, California, botanist Hugh C. Cutler of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and future Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. Regular themes among the photographs include depictions of the natural landscape including rock formations, mountains, rivers, and lakes; Native Americans; trading posts; cliff dwellings; petroglyphs; lodgings; and means of transportation including by train, automobile, airplane, horse, and burro. The volumes consist of: Volume 1: [Sunset Hill "Christmas" scrapbook album]. 1927-1928 Locations referenced: Sunset Hill estate, Upstate New York Volume 2: Sunset Hill and Algonquin Park "birthday" scrapbook album]. 1927-1933 Locations referenced: Sunset Hill estate, Upstate New York, and Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada Volume 3: Navajo Mountain, 1931 Locations referenced: Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico Volume 4: Anthology of Sunset Hill (Its Trails and Poets' Glen). 1934-approximately 1938 Locations referenced: Upstate New York Volume 5: Some poems of Sunset Hill by Mildred E. Baker, Wm. P. Alexander and others. Christmas 1936 Locations referenced: Upstate New York Volume 6: Memorable Days on Teton Trails. 1934 Locations referenced: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Volume 7: A Glimpse of the Old West. August 16th-September 2nd, 1935 Locations referenced: New Mexico Volume 8: Wilderness Wanderings in Jasper and Mt. Robson Parks. July 3rd to 23rd 1936 Locations referenced: Alberta, Canadian Rockies Volume 9: Trail Riding in the Canadian Rockies. July 23 to Aug. 8, 1937 Locations referenced: Alberta, Canadian Rockies Volume 10: Peace of Rainbow and Canyon. July 2nd to 25th, 1938 Locations referenced: Arizona, Utah Volume 11: Rough Water. Down the Green and Colorado Rivers from Green River, Wyoming, to Boulder Dam, Nevada. June 20th-August 22nd, 1940 Locations referenced: Wyoming, Utah, Nevada Volume 12: [Scrapbook of newspaper clippings related to the Nevills expedition]. 1940-1941 Locations referenced: Wyoming, Utah, Nevada Volume 13: Turquoise Skies and Copper Canyon. 1942 Locations referenced: Arizona, Utah

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Baker Family

Manuscripts

mssBaker family papers

Obadiah Ethelbert Baker papers

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Looe Baker and Eliza Wardell Baker family papers

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