Visual Materials
Family photograph albums with scenes from Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, California, and New Mexico
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Colonel Charles Cotesworth Thomas family album with scenes of Southern California
Visual Materials
A family album with 53 photographs showing the family of mining superintendent Colonel Charles Cotesworth Thomas and his wife, Mary Sue Thomas, in Southern California. The images, chiefly cyanotypes, show the family camping, swimming, fishing, hunting, sailing, and in humorous poses primarily on Santa Catalina Island. The album pages have been decorated with hand-drawn black ink illustrations that fit the subject of the photographs. These elements may be the work of artist Annie Loring Bancroft, daughter or stepdaughter of Col. Thomas. Identified family members include the Thomas children: Francis J. Thomas, Chester Thomas, and Bancroft. Pasted at the back of the album are larger prints of the Redondo Hotel in Redondo Beach; two images of a young child with kittens captioned "Flash light" presumably taken with flash photography; a group portrait of Bancroft with friends on the lawn in front of the "Casa Figueroa" house at the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street; an elevated view of Santa Monica Canyon showing Grimminger's Pavilion; and two photographs taken in Japan, one at a tomb in Nikko.
photCL 145

Album of photographs recording a motorcar journey from Nebraska to central California in 1913
Visual Materials
Fascinating photographic record of an early road trip from Nebraska through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and into California. A typed slip affixed to the front pastedown reads "'A fine trip with many hard knocks,' From Wausa, Nebr. to Turlock, Cal." There were four vehicles in the caravan, traversing unpaved tracks through the largely undeveloped Southwest, an uncommon feat at the time. The photographs include views of Starvation Peak, N.M.; a New Mexican Village; Springerville, Arizona with the Reagan Hotel; camp near Ft. Apache, Arizona; am automobile "hospital" at Dome City, Arizona; the Roosevelt Dam; a camp near San Diego, Cal.; etc.
photCL 583
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[Photograph album of scenes in Mexico]
Visual Materials
Photograph album with various snapshots chiefly documenting a trip to Mexico by Los Angeles, California, resident Charles A. Finlayson around 1930, including images of buildings and streets in Mexico City, a visit to a park with deer, buildings under construction, the canals of Xochimilco, and Aztec ruins at Teotihuacan, as well as images, presumably, of Finlayson. Throughout the album, there are also images of the derailment of a locomotive and train cars, presumably of the National Railroad of Mexico, which were carrying military cannons, with photographs of executed men who had been hanged from utility poles along the tracks.
photCL 371
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Items 708-713: Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and California
Visual Materials
This collection contains photographs by historian Ralph P. Bieber documenting the central overland route to California as it appeared in the 1950s. Bieber visited the sites in conjunction with a project to record every aspect of the trails and circumstances associated with the migration of people to California during the Gold Rush years and subsequently. The images document the route through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and California. Bieber organized and annotated the photographs himself, and his original order, based primarily on print size, has been maintained. Additionally, Bieber created photographic categories such as "Donner Party Sites," "Gold Discovery Sites," and "Sites associated with John C. Frémont." Note that Bieber did not arrange the photographs geographically.
photCL 469
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Nebraska; Nevada; New Mexico
Visual Materials
Portraits in Nebraska include: a man holding a cat; workers with tools (possibly plumbers); girls with large hoops; soldiers. Nevada portraits include: a soldier with sword; two boys with two sheep.
photCL 581
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Back family photograph album
Visual Materials
A photograph album documenting the lives of Seid Back, Jr., Mary Chan Back, and their two children, Dip Gay Seid Back (1915-1983) and Katherine Mae Seid Back Lee (1918-2006). Seid Back, Jr. was the son of prominent Chinese American merchant Seid Back, based in Portland, Oregon. The album begins with a studio portrait of the Back family taken in the early 20th century and continues with the lives of the Back family and friends in locations such as Oregon, Washington, California, and the South Pacific, through the late 1940s. A man who is possibly Dip Gay Seid Back is seen in military clothing at a U.S. encampment; writing on the back says "Men of 13th Gen. Hospital. Dec. 1944. New Guinea." Other photographs show young people, white and Asian, in recreational activities and sometimes posing by new cars or in front of houses. The album depicts the everyday activities of young Chinese Americans during the Chinese Exclusion era, their travels by automobiles throughout the American West, a young Chinese American serviceman in the South Pacific, and interracial marriages between Chinese American women and U.S. servicemen.
photCL 706