Visual Materials

Men, women, and children at wooden structures in desert

Description: Photo of men, women, and children posing around a wooden structure.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: approximately 1895
Call number: photCL 98 (15)
Find out more: View in the Huntington Digital Library(Opens in new tab); View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

[Men, women, and children at wooden structures in desert. C.H. Shaffner, photographer]

Visual Materials

Photographs of the American West, dating from the 1870s to the 1890s, collected by Carl S. Dentzel (1913-1980), director of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California, including a disbound album of photographs of Alaska taken by A. L. Broadbent. These views show Revenue Cutter Service ships and officers; Alaskan natives; towns; scenery; the fur trade and mission schools. Other notable photographs in this collection include portraits of John C. Frémont, Harrison Gray Otis, and John A. Sutter; a series of Lake Tahoe card photographs; and views of early western settlers around the time of the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. The collection also depicts Alaskan native graves; missionaries; walrus hunting; whaling ships; totem poles; officers in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service; vacationers throughout California; the logging industry; Kingston, New Mexico; Greek Orthodox church buildings; the first grand jury in Nome, Alaska; James Gilchrist Swan; and a portrait of one of the collection's photographers, Alfred Lee Broadbent. Photographers who contributed to this collection include William C. Billington, Alfred Lee Broadbent, F. Davey, Edward De Groff, Charles D. Kirkland, D. S. Mitchell, C.H. Shaffner, Julius Ulke, and Raper James Waters.

photCL 98

Men, women, and child

Visual Materials

Photo of two men and women with child posing in front of building.

photCL 39 (229)

Image not available

Adults and children walking by wooden buildings

Visual Materials

This collection contains photographs of Los Angeles' Old Chinatown and portraits of its Chinese residents, most dating from the 1890s to the 1900s. Together there are 299 glass plate negatives ranging in size from 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches to 8 x 5 inches; an ornate photograph album containing 12 studio portraits of Chinese men and women; and six additional card photograph portraits. Some printed photographs have the imprints of professional photographers and a few of the glass plate negatives are credited to "Yee Photo, L.A. Cal." They may be connected to a photographer "Yee" who at one time had a studio at 510 North Los Angeles Street in Old Chinatown (see photograph Box 8 (1)). This could possibly be Wy Yee, a photographer working during the same time period. It is unclear if he took all the photographs or there was more than one photographer. There are two glass plate images of a photographer's storefront with a sign in Chinese that translates to Jinghua Photo Studio. Scenes in Old Chinatown include: street views of buildings and storefronts; Chinese and a few white people walking in the streets; the interior of a restaurant and three Chinese workers posing for the camera; two men on bicycles; the Chinese community participating in La Fiesta de las Flores parade; and other candid photographs of people in daily activities. Some buildings have store signs in English and Chinese. The majority of photographs are portraits of primarily Chinese sitters. Several are posed studio portraits of men, women, or children, wearing traditional Chinese or western clothing, with elaborate props and backdrops. Other portraits are simple head shots of Chinese men, one of which has the handwritten date "1902," the year that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was made permanent and required Chinese residents to register and obtain immigration documents. Other photographs include: three studio images of women showing bare shoulders, a Chinese woman posing in a sailor's uniform, and white tourists posing in traditional Chinese clothing. Photographer imprints on card photographs are: Bijou Studio, James Blanchard, George Dewey, J. H. Lamson Company, Michael A. Wesner, and "Yee," who may be photographer Wy Yee, all of Los Angeles. There is one portrait of a Chinese woman by William Shew, San Francisco. The China subseries consists of copies of photographs taken in China, including landmarks and scenes of punishment. Please note that this subseries contains historical images that library users may find harmful, offensive, or inappropriate. Miscellaneous photographs include images of Native Americans and a town in the Southwest.