Watkins (Carleton E.) photograph collection, 1856-1885

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Summary

Title:
Carleton E. Watkins photograph collection
Dates:
1856-1885
Abstract:
This collection contains albumen prints taken throughout Watkins's career, between the years of 1856 and 1885. A number of the photographs depict the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove between 1861 and 1881, and include large-format mammoth plate photographs and smaller photographic prints, as well as more commercial formats such as stereographs, cabinet cards, and boudoir cards. The photographs depict a range of subjects, from locations around the San Francisco Bay to the Western United States, as well as images of prominent visitors to San Francisco, and photographs of the homes of some of Watkins's patrons.
Extent:
65.25 Linear Feet (38 boxes)
Language:
Collection materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item, date] Carleton E. Watkins photograph collection (PC-RM-Watkins). California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists of 176 albumen mammoth prints, over 140 photographic prints (including 6 cyanotypes), 4 photograph albums, over 400 stereographs, and 67 glass stereographs. The collection also includes 100 boudoir cards, 74 cabinet cards, and 33 cartes de visite.

The bulk of photographs depict Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove between 1861 and 1881. The collection includes photographs of various mining operations, including Las Mariposas Mining Estate, as well as the New Idria and New Almaden mines. There are also photographs documenting railway building and industry, including images of the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, and of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company.

Watkins travelled extensively around the West, documenting Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, as well as various California counties. His photographs include many natural features such as Mount Shasta and the geysers in Sonoma County. There are also numerous photos of California missions.

Watkins photographed the homes of prominent Californians, such as the Thurlow Lodge album (Governor of California Milton Latham's home), and bankers Darius O. Mills and William C. Ralston, among others. The cabinet cards and cartes de visite feature portraits of artists, writers, and professors such as Louis Agassiz, Galen Clark, Albert Bierstadt, and William Cullen Bryant, as well as Tomomi Iwakura and Kaikichi M. Hirose.

Watkins' images of San Francisco, his home for much of his life, include images of Alcatraz Island and the Farallon Islands, as well as views of the city taken from various vantage points. There are photographs of buildings, like the Palace Hotel and the Bank of California, local industry, such as the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the San Francisco Woolen Factory, and attractions such as Woodward's Gardens. The collection also includes two photographs of Carleton Watkins taken by other photographers.

Biographical / historical:

Carleton E. Watkins was a 19th century photographer based in San Francisco who made his name documenting the rapid growth of the American West. His photographs of the Yosemite Valley, in Mariposa County, California, are said to have influenced Abraham Lincoln's 1864 Yosemite Land Grant, the first act of Congress to designate federal land for public use.

Watkins was born in Oneonta, New York in 1829. He moved west with childhood friend Collis Huntington during the Gold Rush in 1851. He later took a job in San Francisco working next door to daguerreotypist Robert H. Vance, who eventually hired Watkins and taught him the basics of photography.

Watkins first appeared in the San Francisco directory in 1861, listed as a daguerrean operator at 425 Montgomery Street. That was also the first year he travelled to Yosemite to photograph it, a difficult undertaking that required nearly two thousand pounds of equipment, including at least a dozen mules, flammable chemicals, a stereoscopic camera, an oversize mammoth-plate camera, and 18 x 22 inch glass plates. On the strength of this work, Watkins was hired by the California State Geological Survey from 1865-1866 to further document the Yosemite region.

In 1867 he opened the Yosemite Art Gallery in San Francisco. He also travelled to the Pacific Northwest, photographing Oregon, British Columbia, and the Columbia River. Despite his success as a photographer and his many wealthy patrons, Watkins was a poor businessman and, following the financial panic of 1873, lost his gallery, as well as his photographic negatives, to J.J. Cook, Isaiah W. Taber, and Thomas H. Boyd. Taber then began issuing prints of Watkins images with his name attached and without credit to Watkins. Watkins's "New Series" of photographs were created to replace some of the images he lost. In 1894, Watkins began to experience health problems and vision loss, and by 1903 was almost completely blind. In 1906, while in the process of negotiating the sale and transfer of his photographic archive, including his mammoth glass plate negatives, to Stanford University, the 1906 earthquake struck. Watkins's studio was lost. When his poor health made it difficult for his family to care for him, he was placed in the Napa State Hospital for the Insane. Watkins's died on June 23, 1916.

Information taken from:

Naef, Weston and Christine Hult-Lewis. Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs. Getty Publications, 2011.

Palmquist, Peter E. Carleton E. Watkins: Photographer of the American West. University of New Mexico Press, 1983.

Whitney, JD. "A Watkins Chronology." California History. Vol. 57 No. 3, Fall (1978): 264.

The Photographs of Carleton Watkins. Accessed November 23, 2018. www.carletonwatkins.org.

"Carleton Watkins." The J. Paul Getty Museum. Accessed November 23, 2018. http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1953/carleton-watkins-american-1829-1916/

Acquisition information:
Collection is comprised of multiple donations from various donors. Transferred to Stanford University Libraries in 2025.
Processing information:

The collection was processed by Erin Hurley in 2018, and updated in 2025. Wendy Welker previously processed the Yosemite mammoth prints and cabinet cards in 2015, and her finding aids were incorporated into this one.

The Carleton Watkins Photograph Collection is an assembled collection created from Watkins photographic materials held in the California Historical Society (CHS) Collection. Many of these were gifted to CHS at different times from various donors.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged by format into eight series and, from there, are organized into subseries according to subject (usually location). Materials in each subseries are arranged chronologically. Because Watkins photographed Yosemite at multiple times, on different trips, these photographs are organized according to the "CEW" (for Carleton E. Watkins) negative numbers assigned by Weston Naef and Christine Lewis in their book Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs (Getty Publications, 2011), and were given titles that match those in the book. These CEW numbers are based on numbers that Watkins assigned to nearly all of his negatives, and which were published as a list by Isaiah Taber around 1883. Many of the thematic groupings from the book have also been used to organize the collection. Titles and dates have been taken from the backs of photographs when available. When they were not, they were supplied by the archivist.

Physical location:
Special Collections and University Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged three business days in advance. For more information on paging collections, see the department's website: https://library.stanford.edu/libraries/special-collections.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
The collection was processed by Erin Hurley in 2018. Wendy Welker previously processed the Yosemite mammoth prints and cabinet cards in 2015, and her finding aids were incorporated into this one.
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-04-21 08:13:18 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Access to the mammoth prints and glass stereographic plates must be granted by the Director of Special Collections before paging. Please complete form requesting access: https://forms.gle/4zZAKGYiTuGcpMrk7

Terms of access:

Materials in this collection are in the public domain in the United States.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item, date] Carleton E. Watkins photograph collection (PC-RM-Watkins). California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.

Location of this collection:
Department of Special Collections, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6004, US
Contact:
(650) 725-1022
chscollection@stanford.edu
Website