Charles Janin Papers

The collection consists of letters, manuscripts (including diaries and mining reports), photographs and maps related to the career of mining engineer Charles Janin (1873-1937). Subject matter in the collection focuses on minerals, mines and mining, especially in California, Mexico, Alaska, Canada, Russia (including Siberia), and Central and South America.

There is information about gold, silver, platinum, and tin mining as well as gold dredging, including a Commission for the Study of Gold in the U.S. by the United States Department of the Interior (Box 23, Folders 11-12) and a 1909 letter from Rossiter Worthington Raymond to Louis Janin regarding the professional ethics and legal problems common to mining engineers (Box 20, Folder 3).

Notable material related to Siberia includes a 1918 Memorandum relative to the Necessity for Action by the Allied Governments in Siberia by the American Committee of Engineers in London (Box 1, Folder 7); five letters, dated 1929-1931) from Ennis C. Whitehead to Janin relative to projected flying trip across Siberia (Box 25, Folder 8); and correspondence from George S. Dyer relative to gold mining in Siberia, dated 1917-1936 (Box 4, Folder 23). In addition, there are papers related to the transfer of platinum to the United States from Siberia in the correspondence of Grigorio Benenson (Box 2, Folder 12); Arnold C. Hansen (Box 5, Folder 31); Norman C. Stines (Box 22, Folder 23), as well as responses from Janin to these individuals (see Box 7, Folder 25; Box 9, Folder 6; and Box 13, Folder 15), and in notes on platinum (Box 39, Folder 5).

The collection also contains materials on Russian life and politics (including the Revolution of 1917). There are also materials on the history of the Santa Ynez Valley in California, including irrigation project papers (Box 21, Folders 6-8), and a piece, "Some Recollections of Early Days in the Santa Ynez Valley" by Janin (Box 14, Folder 24).

Persons represented in the collection include Samuel Insull (14 pieces in Box 6, Folder 21), Vannoy Hartrog Manning (18 pieces in Box 17, Folder 19), and Montifiore G. Kahn (35 pieces in Box 15, Folder 16). The collection includes a letter to Janin from John Powers Hutchins related to pre-World War II in Europe (Box 6, Folder 14). Single letters from William Randolph Hearst, Harold L. Ickes, and William Gibbs McAdoo may also be found in the collection. There is also scattered correspondence from various Janin family members.

Businesses or government agencies represented in the collection include the Ingersoll-Rand Company of California, Lena Goldfields, Ltd. (Lenskoe zolotopromyshlennoe tovarishchestvo), and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Although the collection consists basically of mining papers, it will also be of interest to researchers investigating Europe during World War I, Russia and Siberia at the time of the Revolution of 1917, or social and political affairs in the various parts of the world where mining engineers traveled and are intelligent observers, and from which they write letters to each other.