Snow Blockade, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1890 March 13

Summary

Extent:

One album containing 15 mounted photographic prints: black and white; 22 x 28 cm. 15 digital objects

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

This album of 15 Taber photographs shows railroad cuts through the deep snow of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Machinery for cutting through the drifts and railroad workers are also shown in several photographs. The photographs were taken in Placer County at Emigrant Gap, Cascade, and Blue Canon. Each photo bears a printed caption and photographer's number. The title of the collection is the one embossed on the cover of the album. Also embossed on the cover is the name "W.H. Kendal," whose bookplate is pasted to the inside front cover of the album.

Biographical / historical:

Isaiah West Taber was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts August 17, 1830. Taber went to sea at the age of fifteen and spent several years working on whaling ships in the North Pacific. He came to California in 1850, where he spent four years working first as a miner, then a farmer. Taber returned to New Bedford in 1854 where he studied dentistry and began a dental practice. An interest in amateur photography eventually became his life-work. He settled in Syracuse, New York, where he opened his first studio. In 1864 he returned to California at the inducement of the photographers Bradley and Rulofson, whom he worked for until 1871. Taber established the "Taber Gallery" at No. 12 Montgomery Street in 1871. His highly successful business was well-known for portraiture and a vast stock of California and Western views -many of which were the unacknowledged works of other photographers. Taber's success and stature in California and abroad are evident in his being awarded the photographic concession of the Midwinter Fair of 1893-94 in San Francisco, his being sent to London in 1897 to photograph the pageant of the Queen Victoria Jubilee, and his commission to photograph King Edward VII. Taber's career ended in 1906 when his entire collection of glass plates, view negatives and portraits on glass were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire. He died February 22, 1912.

(Sources: Hart, James D.A Companion to California.New York:Oxford University Press,1978, p.439;Murray, W. H.The Builders of a Great City: San Francisco's Representative Men.San Francisco:The Journal,1891, p.329-330 ; and Burdette, Robert J.American Biography and Genealogy. California edition.(Chicago:Lewis Publishing Co., [191-]), p. 756-761.)

Acquisition information:

Purchased by The Bancroft Library in 1975.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

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