About this Item
421 photograph negatives, 4½ x 6¾ inches each. Housed in three button-fastened negative albums. Moderate wear to albums. One negative torn, a few negatives faded or warped. Very good overall. A fascinating collection of original photographic negatives created and organized by Thomas A. Perkins (1859-1938), surveyor, mining engineer, and accomplished amateur photographer, and brother of feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Almost all of the negatives are numbered with corresponding dated captions either written on the negative sleeves or compiled in lists at the end of each album, sometimes with notes from Perkins about exposure times and photo quality. The images begin in 1907 with about 150 shots taken in and around Hailey, Idaho and the Big Wood and Little Wood Rivers. Perkins was involved with the Silver Fortune mine, and there are several images depicting miners and mining operations there, including a cabin, the portal shed and its interior, a man moving a car out of a shaft, and the ore sorting plant. Other images show the locations of other mines and their surrounding buildings, including North Star Gulch, Courier Gulch, Elkhorn, and Outlook Mountain (though Perkins was likely referring to "Lookout"). Two photos showCharles Sonnleitner, manager at the Caledonia Mining Company in 1917, near a mine at Outlook Mountain. Four of the photo negatives show W.R.C. Johnstone and his ranch. There are also images of the house and ranch of W.J. Crooks, and of Crooks with his horses and family, and two shots of T.E. Picotte, publisher of the WOOD RIVER DAILY TIMES, the second daily paper circulated in Idaho Territory. Approximately fifty negatives show the local terrain with detailed captions, allowing one to retrace Perkins' steps through the region that includes Croesus Park, Joaquin Hill, Climax Hill, and Fish Creek. Perkins returned in 1917, 1918, and 1919 and took photos of structures at the Dollarbride mill, the "rediscovery" of the Hemlock mine, and the Egan and Ellingsen ranches. Next is a series of approximately eighty-five images in and around Marysvale, Utah in 1912. In addition to images of the terrain, there are a number of photos of commercial buildings, including those of the Southern Utah Wholesale Company, the Grand Hotel, and a restaurant. There are also many views of the settlement itself, including buildings and homes with their residents standing outside. There are about fifteen images in and around Minidoka in 1909, including homes and other structures and a dam. Several shots from Tuscarora, Nevada and the Bull Run Basin in California in 1909 finish out this section. Finally, there are approximately 100 images from Southern California in the 1920s, of which about half show Perkins' homes in Pasadena, his wife, Margaret, and youngest son, Thomas. Other images show the neighborhood and scenes from Goff Island and Three Arch Bay near Laguna Beach, where they would camp and swim. An excellent collection of images on mining and life in the early 20th-century West.
Seller Inventory # 55603
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