Description
The Fahey-Sloan Collection includes family history materials and photographs. Several
photo albums created by Elizabeth Haskell Sloan document the activities of the Yosemite
Logging Company (1914-1917). Other albums created by Robert Fahey depict the activities
of the Oakdale "Bronco Boys" club (1930s-1950s), his World War II career and his research
on the logging industry in the southern Sierra. There is also an album of the Panama
Pacific International Exposition (1915).
Background
Elizabeth Haskell Sloan (b. 1870) came to California (c1895) after working as a
stenographer for the Chicago Exposition, the Armour Institute and other businesses in the
Chicago area during the mid-1890s. Although she had come initially to help her invalid
sister, Clara, with the latter's three daughters, the sister soon died and Elizabeth
Haskell helped place the daughters in foster homes. She then worked as University
President Benjamin Ide Wheeler's secretary while attending the University of California
(1900-1904). Sloan subsequently graduated from the Pratt Institute Library School (1906)
and returned as a librarian to the University of California (1907-1914). She married her
dead sister's husband, William Haskell Sloan, and moved with him to the Yosemite region
where he was Superintendent of the Yosemite Logging Company (1914-1917). When Sloan
became ill due to over work, they moved to Irvington, Alameda County, where they became
prune farmers. After Sloan's death Elizabeth worked for the Pacific Rural Press and as
associate editor for a local newspaper. One of William Sloan's daughters, Lilly, married
a member of the Fahey Family (c1913).