Research Files: Master of the Columbia: Photography by Carleton E. Watkins at the Oregon Historical Society

Abstract

RESEARCH FILES Master of the Columbia PhotographybyCarletonE.Watkins at the OregonHistorical Society by Megan K. Friedel ON JUNE23, 1916, CARLETON E.Watkins, the great landscape pho tographer of theAmerican West, died blind and penniless in theNapa State Hospital for the Insane in northern California. Aside from a few small, mostly unfinished projects during the early 1890s, Watkins took few photographs in the lastdecades of his life ? and nothing on the scale of his earlier masterpieces of Yosemite and theColumbia River Gorge. The pho tographer's health had declined so pre cipitously by 1903 that he was almost completely blind and unable towork. Similarly, Watkins's finances, never his strong suit,were in disarray. He sold few photographs at all after 1890, and though a selection of his prints was exhibited at theLewis & Clark Centen nial Exposition inPortland during the summer of 1905,he was never paid for thework. Friends tried tohelpWatkins negotiate a sale of his negative and print collection to StanfordUniversity, but on April 18,1906, furtherdisaster struck: a devastating earthquake and firedestroyed the cityof San Francisco andWatkins's entire studio, including his life's work, along with it.1 Itwas an ignominious end for a man who had produced some of the grandest and most celebrated land scape views of theWest during the nineteenth century and who revo lutionized the practice of landscape photography with his large-format mammoth-plate prints. Shortly after Watkins's death, his close friend, the San Francisco photographer Charles Beebe Turrill, attempted to resurrect public interest inhis colleague's work. Turrill's essay, "An Early California Photographer: CE. Watkins," was the firstpublished biography of the pho tographer, appearing in the January 1918 issue ofNews Notes ofCalifornia Libraries, an imprint of theCalifornia State Library. The articlewas a reprint of textTurrill had written to accom 434 OHQ vol. 109, no. 3 ? 20?8 OreS0n Historical Society All imagesfromOregon Historical SocietyResearch Library Org. Lot 93 li O X ?> Carleton E.Watkins, Clearing the channel,Cascades, Columbia River,Oregon (BoudoirD161), 1883 Friedel,Master of theColumbia 435 pany a catalog ofWatkins's "New Series" stereoscopic photographs for the library, and his intention was to bring notice to the scope of the photographer's life work aswell as to itsplace in historical scholarship. As the editor's introductory note states, "it is believed that the work ofMr Watkins was a valuable one forCali fornia, and also that it iswell to draw the attention of California libraries to the worth of these stereoscopic views, some of which every library might have."2 Turrill's article isnotable not only forbeing the firstsubstantive account of Watkins's accomplishments but also because of the audience forwhom it was intended. Turrill turned first to libraries, as opposed to private art collectors, as themost fittingplaces to preserveWatkins's work. In doing so, he brought to light the historical, rather than the artistic, significance of the California State Library's collec tion ofWatkins's stereoviews. Turrill donated many of his own stereoviews to the Society of California Pioneers, including seventy-five glass-plate negatives that had been stored at his home instead of atWatkins's studio during the 1906 earthquake and thus were saved from destruction.3 Many other institutions apparently followed Turrill's lead; the Bancroft Library at theUniversity ofCalifornia, Hunting ton Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford University today hold some of themost substantial collec tions ofWatkins material. Despite so many libraries takingnote of Watkins's influence and importance, little seri ous scholarship was published about Watkins until themid 1970s.4 The Oregon Historical Society began actively collecting the pho tographs of Carleton Watkins well before he was rediscovered by schol ars. Today, itholds one of themost significant collections ofWatkins material in the nation. Housed at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, the collection includes 268 stereoscopic photographs (commonly known as "stereoviews"); 43 other card-type photographs, including cartes de visite, cabinet cards, and boudoir cards; 100mammoth-plate photographs; 2 photograph albums; and several loose-plate prints.5Many of theWatkins photographs at the society,especially the mammoth prints and early stereoviews, are signed by the photographer himself, and all of the titles and numbers of themammoth plate photographs arewritten inpencil inhis own hand. What...