U.S. West: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints

DeGolyer Library

About the Collection

Overview

U.S. West: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints digital collection provides a sample of the photographs, images, albums, and more, relating to the U.S. West held by SMU's DeGolyer Library.

DeGolyer Library digital collections are part of CUL Digital Collections, which contain thousands of digitized photographs, manuscripts, imprints, and works of art held by SMU's Central University Libraries special collections.  

Collection Materials

In general, collecting at the DeGolyer Library emphasizes the American West, the borderlands, exploration, business history and transportation, particularly the railroads. The DeGolyer houses extensive photographic collections totaling over 900,000 images. Included are photographs by such important Western landscape photographers as Carleton Watkins, Andrew Russell, Alexander Gardner, William Henry Jackson, John Hillers, Charles Roscoe Savage, F. Jay Haynes, Edward Curtis, Robert Benecke and Laura Gilpin. The DeGolyer has several rare Western accessions, including Alexander Gardner’s 1867 portfolio, Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Route of the 35th Parallel), which is one of only four known copies of this early, significant western landscape project.

In the DeGolyer collections, there are also examples of early photographic processes and formats covering the history of photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, stereographs, cartes de visite, photographically illustrated books, real photographic postcards, and albumen and gelatin silver prints from ca. 1846 to 1960s.

Holdings and Highlights

In the U.S. West: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints digital collection, the DeGolyer Library is making available all or part of a growing number of its accessions:

 

• Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Route of the 35th Parallel) by Alexander Gardner
• Alaska, photographs from the Gold Rush of the late 1890s
• Alaska: Mayo & Weed photograph album, showing Alaska, as well as Colorado, Utah, and British Columbia
  
• Alexander Gardner cartes de visite and portraits
• Album of views of Arizona, New Mexico and the southwest, 1892 (William Henry Jackson photographs)
• Arizona and California, album by A. A. Forbes
• Carleton E. Watkins photographs, ca. 1869-1885
• Central Pacific Railroad Stereographs, ca. 1867-1869
• Collection of American Indian Postcards
• 
• Collection of California and Colorado photographs
• Collection of Carleton E. Watkins western stereoscopic views
• Collection of cowboy postcards
• Collection of cowgirl postcards
• Collection of photographs of Indians and the west
• Collection of western prints by John M. Stanley
• Colorado by William Henry Jackson
• Colorado Exploring Expedition lithographs ca. 1860
• Costilla Estates Development Company, San Luis, Colorado Photographs, April, 1909
• C.R. Savage photographs
• Early Aviation and Northrop Aircraft Corporation Albums
• Explorations in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico and the Colorado River by Timothy O’ Sullivan
• F. Jay Haynes photographs of Yellowstone National Park, including Broad panel views, Yellowstone Park; Portfolio, marbled cover; Portfolio, brown cover; and Album, tan cover
• Gems of California Scenery
• Indians
• Indians of the Oklahoma Territory
• Huntley irrigation project, Montana
• Hunting journal, 1877, by Algernon Heber Percy and his wife
• John K. Hillers photographs of Indian pueblos
• Journey through the Yellowstone National Park and Northwestern Wyoming, 1883.
• 
• Landscape photographs of Yosemite, California by Eadweard Muybridge
• Lantern Slides of Indians, ca. 1900-1920
• Lantern slides of Mexico, California and Colorado by William Henry Jackson
• Les geysers d'Amerique by William Henry Jackson
• Martin Garretson Prints of Buffalo Hunting, 1914, four lithographs by Martin S. Garretson that depict the decline of the Buffalo population due to hunting in the 1860s-1880s
• Missouri River ferries
• Mountain Charley, or the Adventures of Mrs. E. J. Guerin, Who Was Thirteen Years in Male Attire. An Autobiography Comprising a Period of Thirteen Years Life in the States, California, and Pike's Peak, 1861, by Elsa Jane Guerin
• On the Kansas Pacific Railway by Robert Benecke
• Our Denver Story, 1863, including albums, photographs, correspondence, drawings, and ephemera documenting Jane Whiteley's trip to Denver by stage coach in 1863.
• Pacific Coast Scenery, 1872, by Houseworth and Co.
• Panorama of San Francisco from California St. Hill, 1877, by Eadweard Muybridge
• Partridge's Alaska photographs
• Photographs of Colorado and New Mexico by D. B. Chase and others
• 
• Photographs of the Yellowstone National Park and views in Montana and Wyoming territories, by William Henry Jackson
• Photographs of Weber Canon and Echo City, Utah by Carleton E. Watkins
• Professor Sedgwick's illuminated lectures "across the continent"
• San Francisco album: photographs of the most beautiful views and public buildings of San Francisco, 1856, by G.R. Fardon.
• San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
• Stereographs of the Dakota Territory
• Stereographs of the U.S. West and Midwest
• The Great Union Pacific Railroad, Excursion to the Hundredth Meridian: From New York to Platte City, 1867, published by The Republican Company.
• Topham Family Letters, Folder 1. Simon Thornton Topham, a polygamist, wrote these letters to his second wife, Mary "Lucinda" Robinson Topham, during the years 1887-1908
• 
• 139 items from the Tourist album: Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah, which contains 287 photographs; 152 items are in the Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints collection.
• Two Years Among the Spirits in the Godless Town of Liberal: The Experience of the Famous Medium, Dr. J.B. Bouton, Liberal, Mo., 1888, by J.B. Bouton
• Union Pacific Railroad, ca. 1880-1925
• Union Pacific Railroad Illustrations, 1869, and Union Pacific Railroad. Photographical Illustrations. (also known as The Great West illustrated in a series of photographic views across the Continent taken along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad ...), 1869, by Andrew Russell.
• United States Army 1st Cavalry records, 1829-1840
• Utah and Wyoming, 1868-1870, by Andrew J. Russell
• Views of Colorado, New Mexico and Mexico, ca. 1880s-1890s
• Views of New Almaden, ca. 1885-1895, by Robert R. Bulmore and S.W. Winn
• Western expedition, railroad and survey stereographs, included is the Union Pacific Rail Road, Excursion to the 100th Meridian, October 1866
  
• Wiley Oil Wells, California photographs
• 101 Ranch and Burroum Ranch, Del Rio, Texas

Digital Collections Guidelines and Procedures

Items in Central University Library Digital Collections are digitized following the SMU Central University Libraries Digitization Guidelines and Procedures. Digital collections are created under the guidelines of the nCDS Digital Collections: Filenaming, Workflow, and Metadata Guidelines, or through specialized metadata profiles tailored for the collection.

Usage

Copyright usage terms vary throughout the collection. Each item contains information about usage terms. If SMU does not have the right to publish the item on the Internet, only the item's metadata will be available and the digitized object will be available on a restricted access basis. Such items may only be viewed on campus. When items are available for use, please cite DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. A high-quality version of these files may be obtained for a fee by contacting degolyer@smu.edu.

Contact Info

For more information about the collection, please contact degolyer@smu.edu.