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Visual Materials

Subseries A. The Wright Family: Home and Travels


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    Subseries A. The Wrights in 1899

    Visual Materials

    This volume describes a vacation taken by the Wright family and friends on Santa Catalina Island, where they stayed at a friend's cottage. Photographs depict the steamer on which the family traveled, the S. S. Hermosa; birds-eye views of Avalon Bay; interior and exterior views of the cottage; beach scenes and fishing trips; people including Walter S., Bernice, Howard, Catherine, and Adaline Wright and friends; Sugar Loaf; camping excursions, including a trip by Howard W. Wright with a group to Eagles' Nest Canyon; and Howard and Adaline Wright in a cave. The volume also includes a photograph of Walter S. Wright at work in his study and a few photographs of family trips to Santa Anita Canyon and Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains; some of the photographs were taken by commercial photographers. Additionally, at the end of the volume is a two-page letter from a young Howard to Walter S. Wright describing a trip collecting birds' eggs and a children's drawing by an unidentified person.

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    Subseries C. The Wright Family Album

    Visual Materials

    Photographs depict the San Gabriel Mission, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the William Money octagonal adobe in San Gabriel; the Mount Lowe railway; people outside of residences; El Molino Viejo (or Old Mill) in San Marino; the Hotel La Pintoresca (or Painter Hotel) and the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena; beach scenes; and Sugar Loaf at Santa Catalina Island.

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    Subseries D. Channel Islands and Mexico

    Visual Materials

    Photographs, many of which show Walter S. Wright and Howard W. Wright, depict cormorants, birds' nests, and seals; the city of Avalon, including scenes from a storm and its aftermath in 1912; views of the Siwash during the Santa Barbara race in 1911, when the vessel won a prize; views from cruises to Santa Barbara Island; Anacapa, including the arch and cave; San Clemente Island; Pelican Bay; Santa Cruz Island; Tinker's Bay; Frye's Harbor; San Miguel Island, including a ranch house buried in sand and the husk of a wrecked boat; scenes from a Stanford University fraternity trip, including fishing for albacore and group portraits; and views from the Trans-Pacific Yacht Race of 1912 and the Arbitrary Handicap at Santa Barbara. The album also includes photographs of a camping trip to Mecca, California and a visit to the Salton Sea; and views of Mexico, including a bullfight in Ensenada and cormorants, pelicans, ospreys, wrens, and other birds on Saint Martin Island and at Todos Santos Bay.

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    Howard W. Wright Family Collection of Photographs

    Visual Materials

    This collection contains approximately 1520 photographs in 11 volumes, comprising four journal accounts written by Walter Savage Wright from 1899-1901 and 7 photograph albums compiled by Walter S. Wright and his son, Howard Walter Wright. The journal accounts contain approximately 210 photographs and the photograph albums approximately 1310 photographs, dating from approximately 1878-1930, chiefly 1896-1917. The photographers are chiefly unidentified, though it is assumed that most were taken by members of the Wright family, chiefly Walter S. Wright and Howard Walter Wright; some photographs were taken by commercial photographers. The journal accounts, entitled The Wrights in 1899 (Volume I); How Thompson Shows his Mines (1899, Volume II); About that Mexican Trip: How they Landed the Concession for the Railroad for Exploiting Los Pintos Mines (1900, Volume III); and A Summer Cruise (1901, Volume IV), are typewritten, with photographs pasted in to accompany the text; the titles are printed on the volumes. Topics addressed in the journals include the Wrights' family life in Pasadena; Walter S. Wright's journeys to Sonora, Mexico, with business partners to secure a railroad concession for the Los Pintos Mines; and a cruise taken by the Wright family to the Channel Islands in 1899, so that son Howard W. Wright could engage in bird collecting and photography. The photograph albums depict the Wrights' life and residence in Pasadena; the family's travels to Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains, Santa Catalina Island, and other areas of California; trips aboard the yachts Seabird and Siwash to the Channel Islands; Baja, Mexico; and and other destinations, both for family vacations and for Howard Walter Wright's exploits as a bird collector and birder; Howard W. Wright's years as a student at Stanford University (1911-1915) and his tours in Japan, China, and the Philippines during his service in the Navy during World War I. Titles for the photograph albums were devised by the cataloger.

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    Subseries B. Pasadena, Santa Catalina Island, San Gabriel Mountains, and Mexico

    Visual Materials

    Photographs depict family trips to Santa Catalina Island, with views of the island and of Avalon; hiking, fishing, camping, and scenes from a house party; interior and exterior views of the family's Pasadena residence and of people, including an African American man sitting with a boy by a garden plot and children playing outside; the Tournament of Roses parade in 1902; and trips to Mount Wilson and the San Gabriel Mountains, including images of parties at Martin's Camp and Henninger Flats, the Mount Wilson Hotel and cottages, and people on trails. Some of the photographs of Mount Wilson, including a view of the Mount Wilson Hotel with Walter S. Wright and James H. Holmes, were taken by William R. Staats. Photographs of Mexico depict a train and a town new San Jorges Bay; people, including women washing clothes in a river; the construction of a state prison; people boarding a train to Guaymas; views of Guaymas and Guaymas Bay; and scenes from a trip to Hermosillo taken by Walter S. Wright and William R. Staats, with views of the Palacio, the mayor's home, street scenes, and ruins of a church. A few photographs of the Palacio evidence conflict with Yaqui Indians, including one image showing Yaqui arms in a courtyard and others of soldiers. Several photographs depict indigenous people, including one image of Walter S. Wright looking at women sitting on a street corner, captioned "Street."

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    Subseries B. How Thompson Shows His Mines

    Visual Materials

    This volume recounts events from the summer of 1898, in which Walter S. Wright and associates including James H. Holmes, described as someone who "runs a tavern in Pasadena"; H. C. Steele of San Bernardino; C. P. Morehouse; and William R. Staats journeyed to Mexico in order to work with J. D. Thompson to build a railroad from San Jorges Bay in the Gulf of California in Sonora to the Los Pintos Mines. In a handwritten note to wife Bernice dated June, 1899, Wright states that "our Mexican trip was a hurried one," and that the volume "was arranged to illustrate the haste and some other features of the trip"; in the body of the account, he describes himself as someone who "runs a law office in the same town" as Holmes. The photographs depict portions of the journey to Mexico via Arizona, with images of Ajo, Arizona including a woman who is shown baring her breast and a saloon in a tent house; exterior and interior views of a silver mine and pumping station at an unidentified location in the state and of a Tohono O'odham feast house; a mill in Quitovac in Sonora, Mexico; and mines and Mexican miners at the Los Pintos mines, with mention of mines named "Dolores" and "Bonanza." Photographs also include portraits of various business partners and images of them engaged in various activities, such as cooking and preparing for visits to mines.

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