Visual Materials

3.5 California missions, bells, adobes, and churches

Description: Includes snapshots and commercial prints. Photographers include: Grace Nicholson/Carroll S. Hartman; J. Edward Greene; Ironmonger; Frank L. Park & Co.; Parker & Knight; C. B. Waite.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: approximately 1870s-1968.
Call number: photCL 56
Creator: Nicholson, Grace (-1948)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of Thyra H. Maxwell, October 1968.
Restrictions: Advance arrangements for viewing negatives must be made with the Curator of Photographs. The collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department.

Adobes and Churches

Visual Materials

This collection contains approximately 10,000 photographs, negatives and ephemera created or compiled by Grace Nicholson (1877-1948), a collector and dealer of Native American and Asian arts and crafts in Pasadena, California. The bulk of the collection dates from 1903 to the 1920s and includes photograph albums and individual photographs with views of Native Americans of the Northwest Coast, California, and the Southwest of North America; pictures documenting Nicholson's basket collecting trips primarily between 1902 and 1912; images of Nicholson's stores and residences in Pasadena, including the building of the "Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art" in the mid-1920s; and personal photographs of Nicholson, her family, friends, and associates. Nicholson's personal snapshots and photograph albums provide a valuable resource for studying Native American communities, particularly in Northern California, in the early 20th century. Many of the photographs depict daily life and include images of homes, community events, dances and rituals, families and children, and portraits. Most of these photographs were taken by Grace Nicholson or her assistant, Mr. Carroll S. Hartman, and are often accompanied by Nicholson's handwritten identifications.

photCL 56

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