- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"simple", "value"=>"2.6 linear ft."}
- unitid
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{"value"=>"MssCol 1541", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"1541", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1862-1942", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1862/1942"}
- date_inclusive_start
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1862
- date_inclusive_end
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1942
- keydate
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1862
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"William Henry Jackson papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"The <span class=\"corpname\">New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.</span> <div class=\"address\"> <span class=\"addressline\">5th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York, New York 10018-2788</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"William Henry Jackson was an American photographer, artist and writer best known for his landscapes of the American West. He acted as photographer for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories in 1870-1879, producing some of the earliest photographs of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming wilderness areas. The collection consists of diaries, letters, photographs, sketchbooks, notebooks, and ephemera. Jackson's diaries, diary transcripts and narratives cover his years as a Union soldier, 1862-1863; his travels through Nebraska, Utah, and California, 1866-1867; his years as a photographer in Omaha and as a photographer with the U.S. Geological Surveys, 1870-1878; his world tour with the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896; a short period of his work for the Detroit Publishing Company and his later years as an independent photographer and painter, 1925-1942. Jackson's letters to his wife and a few photographs date from the time of the World's Transportation Commission tour, 1894-1896."}
- prefercite
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{"value"=>"<p>William Henry Jackson Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>William Henry Jackson, artist and renowned photographer of the American West, was born in Keesville, New York in 1843. He began his career at the age of fifteen with jobs retouching photographs in Troy, New York and later Rutland, Vermont. In 1862 Jackson enlisted in the Union Army. He served for nine months with Company K of the 12th Vermont Regiment before returning to his job in Rutland.</p> <p> In 1866 Jackson made his first trip to the West. Starting out from New York City, he made his way to California and back as far as Omaha by working a variety of menial jobs, as \"bull-whacker\" on a wagon train, farm laborer, and mustang driver. After a year of arduous work for little compensation, Jackson returned to studio work for a commercial photographer in Omaha.</p> <p>He arranged to buy out the owner fairly soon thereafter, and with one (and later two) of his brothers opened Jackson Brothers studio. Shortly after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, Jackson left the business in the hands of his wife and brothers, and made use of the new railroad to spend the summer photographing the wilderness to which he now had easier access. He photographed the railroad line, railroad workers, the new settlements that had grown up along the line, and the spectacular landscapes of the Wyoming Territory. The summer's work sold well, being the first prints available of that wilderness area. His work so impressed Ferdinand V. Hayden, director of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, that Jackson was asked to accompany the Survey's expedition during the summer of 1870. The following year he became an official photographer and closed his Omaha studio. For the next eight years he spent his summers with its field expeditions and the remainder of the year printing his photographs and assisting in the preparation of the Survey's heavily illustrated reports of its work. He produced some of the earliest views of the natural wonders of the American landscape in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, in particular the area known as \"The Yellowstone\" which became the first national park.</p> <p>When funding for the Survey was discontinued in 1879, Jackson opened a new studio in Denver. During the nearly twenty years that he maintained the studio he completed numerous commissions from railroads, hotels, states, and municipalities. He produced the illustrations for the official report of the World's Columbian Expedition of 1893 and spent over two years abroad with the World's Transportation Commission (1894-1896) photographing ancient and modern modes of transportation.</p> <p>In 1898 Jackson closed his studio and entered into partnership with the Detroit Photographic Company (later Detroit Publishing Company), manufacturers and distributors of colored picture postcards, prints, and fine art reproductions. He acted as field photographer for the firm, both shooting new photographs and purchasing the work of other photographers, until 1902 when he gave up field work to act as plant manager. He retired from the firm in 1924.</p> <p>Jackson stayed quite active in retirement. He wrote two memoirs, The Pioneer Photographer (with Frank Driggs, 1929) and Time Exposure (1940); painted murals of Western scenes for the National Park Service; and acted as spokesman and recording secretary for the Oregon Trail Memorial Association. He died in 1942 at the age of 99.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The William Henry Jackson Papers, 1862-1942, consist chiefly of his diaries, (including diary transcripts, reconstructions, and narratives) which span the years from his enlistment in the Union army during the Civil War at the age of 19 until his death in 1942 at the age of 99. The remainder of the collection consists of letters written to his wife while abroad, 1894-1896, two sketchbooks, four notebooks, and a few pieces of ephemera that had been tucked into the diaries.</p> <p>The diaries vary in depth and breadth of coverage, as well as in format. Some are original holograph journals. Others are holograph or typed transcripts made by Jackson from the originals. Some which appear to be transcripts are Jackson's narrative reconstructions based on the original diaries; others are memoirs based on brief notes.</p> <p>These \"diaries\" as a whole cover his nine months in the Vermont Regiment, 1862-1863; his first trip West in 1866-67; the opening of his studio in Omaha; his photography along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869; his \"photographic campaigns\" with the U.S. Geological Survey, 1870-1878; his travels abroad with the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1986; and his years in retirement, 1925-1942.</p> <p>There are no diaries covering his years as a commercial photographer in Denver, 1879-1897, and only one diary (1901) and one notebook related to the 27 years he worked for the Detroit Photographic Company (later Detroit Publishing Company).</p> <p>His years as photographer for the World's Transportation Commission are the most extensively documented. Supplementing his five diaries of the world tour, 1894-1896, are approximately eighty-five letters written to his wife during the three years he was abroad; twenty-nine photographs taken in India, New Zealand, and Korea; two pieces of printed ephemera; and two typescript essays, \"A Brief Account of My Travels Abroad with the World's Transportation Commission\" and \"The World's Transportation Commission Calls On the Maharajah of Kashmir.\"</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The William Henry Jackson papers are arranged in three series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/1541#c183082'>I. Letters to his wife</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1894-1896</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains approximately eighty-five letters Jackson wrote to his second wife, Emilie Painter Jackson, during his travels abroad with the World's Transportation Commission. The letters recount the pleasures and many frustrations he experienced while working as the Commission's photographer. He comments on local customs, the foibles of his travelling companions, (especially the Commission's leader, Joseph G. Pangborn), varied eating and sleeping arrangements, hardships met with in his photographic work, and his nagging financial worries and concern about the welfare of his family during his extended absence. Many of the letters are quite long, but break off abruptly, often without closing or signature, so that they could be included in the day's outgoing mail.</p> <p>The letters are addressed from many locales including London, France, Algeria, Gibraltar, Egypt, India, Siam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Macao, Korea, Japan, China, Siberia, Moscow, and Berlin.</p> Jackson's letters from Russia are dated according to the Julian calendar (Old Style) but are interfiled chronologically with his other letters as if the dating system were unchanged.</div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/1541#c183087'>II. Diaries, diary transcripts, narratives, photographs</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1862-1942</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains Jackson's original diaries for the period of his service in the Union Army, 12th Vermont Regiment, Company K (1862-1863); the summer spent photographing along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah (1869); his first field excursion as unofficial photographer with the United States Geological Survey in the Wyoming Territory (1870); and fragmentary diary notes for his final summer with the Survey in Yellowstone (1878). The series also contains five diaries covering his world tour with the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896; three of the five are devoted to the Siberian portion of the trip. These are accompanied by transcripts of the diaries, typescripts of two articles Jackson wrote about his experiences on the trip, and twenty-nine photographs taken in India, Korea, and New Zealand. Finally, there is one diary, 1901, covering three months spent in California, Oregon, and Washington shooting and purchasing photographs for the Detroit Publishing Company, and twenty volumes of diaries kept during his retirement, 1925-1942. Some of the 19th century diaries contain his sketches and doodles, which are not always reproduced in the transcripts.</p> <p> The series also includes Jackson's transcripts and reconstructions of his diaries for 1866-1867, 1873, 1874, and 1875. The original diaries are in the Stephen H. Hart Library of the Colorado Historical Society in Denver.</p> <p>Finally, the series contains typed narratives made by Jackson during the preparation of his memoirs. Some recount the same material covered by the diaries and transcripts; others cover periods for which there are no diaries extant.</p> All the material in this series has been arranged in rough chronological order according to the time period of the subject matter. Jackson's original diaries are accompanied by transcripts and narratives covering the same period, even though the latter may have been prepared many years later.</div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/1541#c183166'>III. Notebooks, Sketchbooks, Ephemera</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The final series consists of two undated sketchbooks containing sketches and floorplans of pueblos, presumably made during his U.S.G.S. field work; four notebooks containing lists of photographs taken for the Detroit Publishing Company (1903, 1904, 1906); undated notes on art history; notes (1929 and undated) on the history of the American West, made in the course of his work for the Oregon Trail Memorial Association; and a few pieces of ephemera that had been tucked into the diaries, including a roster of Company K of the 12th Vermont Regiment, a military pass issued to Jackson (1863), a map of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and a death notice of his second wife, Emilie Painter Jackson (1918).</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gift of Clarence S. Jackson (son of William Henry Jackson), 1942; 1947</p>"}
- altformavail
-
{"value"=>"<p>Diaries, 1862-1901, and letters to his wife, 1894-1896; available on microfilm; New York Public Library; *ZL-313</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>Original diary, 1869 June 22-Sept. 27 (1869) and typed transcript; available in NYPL Digital Gallery</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>Typed narrative/reconstruction, 1867-1869, \"Omaha and the Union Pacific;\" available in NYPL Digital Gallery</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>Related materials in the Manuscripts and Archives Division include the Robert Brewster Stanton Papers. The Photography Collection of The New York Public Library holds an extensive collection of Jackson's photographs and stereographs; among the images available in NYPL Digital Gallery are his \"Mammoth prints of Colorado and Wyoming.\" Many of Jackson's Detroit Publishing Company photographs and those taken during the World's Transportation Commission expedition are available on the Library of Congress American Memory website</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed and machine-readable finding aid created by Melanie A. Yolles.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1862
- date_end
-
1942