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Inventory of the William H. Weinland Collection, ca. 1885-1920s
photCL 039
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Title: William H. Weinland Collection,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1885-1920s
Collection number: photCL 039
Creator:
Weinland, William H., 1861-1930
Extent: 525 single photographs in 5 boxes; 3 small photo
albums in 2 boxes
Repository: The
Huntington Library
San Marino, California 91108
Language:
English.
Gift of Clarence E. Weinland, youngest son of the Weinlands, 1955 & 1970.
Collection is open to qualified researches by prior application through the Reader
Services Department. For more information please go to following
URL.
In order to quote from, publish, or reproduce any of the manuscripts or visual materials,
researchers must obtain formal permission from the office of the Library Director. In
most instances, permission is given by the Huntington as owner of the physical property
rights only, and researchers must also obtain permission from the holder of the literary
rights In some instances, the Huntington owns the literary rights, as well as the
physical property rights. Researchers may contact the appropriate curator for further
information.
[Identification of item], William H. Weinland Collection, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
William Henry Weinland (1861-1930) was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He
attended Moravian schools and was graduated from Moravian College and Theological
Seminary in preparation for a life of professional ministry. In 1884 Weinland volunteered
for an exploratory expedition into Alaska with Henry Hartmann, a Moravian missionary
based in Canada, to determine an appropriate site for a mission. A settlement along the
Kuskokwim River was deemed suitable and in 1885, now ordained and newly married to
Caroline Yost, Weinland returned to "Bethel," Alaska with his bride and three other
missionaries, thus signaling the advent of a career devoted to missionary work. The
Weinland's term of duty in Alaska was to be curtailed, however, by the ill health of Mrs.
Weinland and one of her daughters.* The family returned to the United States where Rev.
Weinland assumed the pastorate of the Moravian Church in Grace Hill, Iowa.
In 1889, after nearly two years at their mid-Western post, the Weinland's received a
formal call to take part in more pioneering work. This time they would establish a new
mission among the Native Americans of southern California. After surveying the general
surroundings, the Weinland's decided on the Morongo Reservation (then known familiarly as
"The Potrero") where they would represent the Moravian Church for some forty years. The
Weinland's raised seven children on the reservation and spent the final years of their
lives in nearby Banning, California.
*For more information on Weinland's activities in
Alaska see: Oswalt, Wendell H.
Mission of Change in Alaska: Eskimos
and Moravians on the Kuskowim.
San Marino, Calif.: The Huntington
Library, 1963.
The photographs in the Weinland Collection depict the people, the experiences and places
which comprised their years of missionary service, first in Alaska and more extensively
among the Native Americans of southern California. Though the vast majority of the
photographs depict life on the Morongo Reservation, Weinland was an itinerant of sorts,
an activist who sought a foothold for Protestantism wherever he could. Consequently,
there are images from a number of the reservations which surrounded Morongo. The Alaska
images were photographed by Hartmann and Weinland, as many of the mounts attest, and by
the commercial photographer, M. Lorenz. The Morongo views are harder to attribute, though
many were definitely taken by Weinland himself and others undoubtedly were. Some
commercial photographers are also represented throughout this portion of the collection.
Volumes 2 and 3 were albums compiled by Sarah Morris, one of the first school teachers at
Morongo and a personal friend of the Weinlands. Her albums focus, naturally enough on the
school houses where she taught as well as her charges. There is an item-level finding
guide for all three of the volumes.
What follows is a general description of the photographs in the Weinland Collection
according to their subject arrangement.
See collection summary guide in the Manuscript Department for information regarding the
Weinland papers. California Scrapbooks 8 [St. Francis Dam Disaster] and 59 [Native
Americans in Morongo & surrounding areas] are also part of the Weinland Collection.