Collection of Panoramic Photographs

The Huntington Library's Collection of Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1995, contains 117 panoramas that depict a wide variety of subjects and provide an important resource for the visual history of the United States, with a particular emphasis on California and the American West. Subjects include landscapes, group portraits, and miscellaneous views. The landscapes include views of Los Angeles and vicinity (including central Los Angeles, Hollywood, East Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Mount Lowe); views of San Francisco (including balloon views of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire created by the George R. Lawrence Company); miscellaneous landscapes (including Yosemite Falls; Tehachapi Loop; Los Gatos, California; Camp Bowie, Texas; Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains; Furnace Creek in Death Valley; Hoover Dam; Thermopolis, Wyoming; and unidentified views); views of industry (including the Newport News shipyard and the Venice-Del Rey oil fields); desert and mining towns (including Virginia City, Nevada; Bisbee, Arizona; and Ouray, Colorado); the Panama Canal; and Norris Dam (Tennessee). The group portraits include clubs; employees; school children; professional organizations; military personnel; pageant and play participants (including two portraits of casts of the Mission Play); birthday parties; and miscellaneous groups. The miscellaneous views include views of the Ascot Park Racetrack in Gardena, California; a revival held by Aimee Semple McPherson in Balboa Park (San Diego); opening ceremonies of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics; and the raising of the U.S.S. Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor.

The collection also contains photographs by some of the better known photographers and photographic firms of the first part of the twentieth century. Photographers and publishers represented in the collection include Charles Z. Bailey; Bailey and Ramsey; Bryant Studio; Bunnell Photo Shop; California Panorama Company; Bell Clements; Fay Foto Service; R.J. Gallagher; George. R. Lawrence Company; J.D. Givens; Gordon Panoramic Photo Company; Griffith Photo; Harris Photographic Company; Karen Halverson; George W. Hazard; L. M. Hermance; Hiller; Hughes Photos; B. Isensee; William Henry Jackson; I.L. Maduro; Mayhart Studio; C.R. Nock; Panorama Publishing Company; Pettit's Studio; Photo News Service; C.C. Pierce; A.C. Pillsbury; Pillsbury Picture Company; Prince Photo; G.H. Rice; H.H. Rideout; Sanford and Black Photo News Service; Thompson; O.A. Tunnell; H.A. Varble; Miles F. Weaver; and West Coast Art Company.

Titles in brackets are supplied; otherwise all titles come from the photographs themselves.