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Inventory of Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., Papers
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Title: Inventory of Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., Papers
Creator:
Hubbard, Bernard Rosecrans, S.J., 1888-1962
Extent: ca. 17 boxes
Repository:
Santa Clara University Archives
Santa Clara, CA 95053
Language:
English.
Santa Clara University permits public access to its archives within the context of respect for individual privacy, administrative
confidentiality, and the integrity of the records. It reserves the right to close all or any portion of its records to researchers.
The archival files of any office may be opened to a qualified researcher by the administrator of that office or his/her designee
at any time.
Archival collections may be used by researchers only in the Reading Room of the University Archives and may be photocopied
only at the discretion of the archivist.
Permission to copy or publish any portion of the Archives' materials must be given by the Archives.
[Identification of item], Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., Papers, Santa Clara University. University Archives.
Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., (1888-1962), known as the "Glacier Priest," was an explorer, photographer, and popular lecturer.
He was born 24 November 1888 in San Francisco, son of George M. Hubbard (d. 1914) and Catherine Wilder Hubbard (d. 1910).
He had a brother John, a mining engineer, and a sister, Mary Hubbard Stanley.
Hubbard grew up in Santa Cruz, California, and lived for a time in a house built by his brother John in the Santa Cruz mountains
near Ben Lomond. The site, now owned by Lockheed Corporation, is marked by a memorial plaque. It is from this period in his
life that Hubbard dated the beginning of his interests in photography and nature.
Hubbard attended Santa Clara College from 1906 to 1908. He entered the Jesuit order on 7 Sept. 1908, and spent the years 1908-1910
at the Jesuit Novitiate in Los Gatos, California. He served his regency at Los Angeles College from 1913-1918. Hubbard studied
philosophy at Mt.St. Michael's, a Jesuit seminary in Spokane, Washington, receiving an M.A. degree through Gonzaga University
in 1921.
Prior to his ordination as a priest, Hubbard studied theology at Innsbruck, Austria, in 1921-22. While at Innsbruck, he received
the name "Der Gletscher Pfarrer," or "Glacier Priest," because of his liking for climbing in the Alps. During his stay in
Austria, he became friendly with some of the actors in the Oberammergau Passion Play,including Anton Lang. Hubbard was ordained
a priest in Austria in 1923. He returned to Santa Clara, where he taught German, geology, and religion. He received honorary
doctorates from Marquette University in 1937 and Trinity College in 1941.
Hubbard first went to Alaska in 1927. His summer expeditions of exploration and photography became an annual event. During
the winters, he traveled around the United States giving lectures and showing his films, with the proceeds going to support
the Jesuit missions in Alaska. "Half the year the highest paid lecturer in the worldd, the other half a wanderer among treacherous
craters and glaciers": thus
The Literary Digest described him in 1937. Hubbard's best know expeditions were perhaps that of 1931, during which he completed both a 1600-mile
mush down the Yukon River, visiting missions, and a expedition into the erupting Aniakchak crater, and his expedition of 1936
to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes.
During and after World War II, Hubbard became involved with the U.S. military, both as an adviser on Alaska and as lecturer/chaplain
to the troops. In 1945, he traveled around the world, photographing damaged and destroyed Jesuit institutions as part of a
fund-raising campaign. In his later years, Hubbard returned to Santa Clara, where he established the Hubbard Educational Films,
also called Hubbard Laboratories, an educational film production and distribution service based on the University campus.
In 1955 Hubbard had a stroke in Hartford, Connecticut, during a lecture tour. He had to curtail some of his activity, although
he returned to Alaska a few more times. Accounts of the last years of his life describe him as writing his autobiography and
cataloguing his photographs, neither of which he finished. Hubbard died 28 May 1962 in Donohoe Infirmary at the University
of Santa Clara.
The materials contained in this collection were found in Fr. Hubbard's office in Ricard Observatory on the Santa Clara campus
after his death in 1962. While most of Hubbard's papers and his photographs and films were transferred to the University Archives,
some of his more personal effects were forwarded to the Archives of the California Province of the Society of Jesus. This
inventory covers only those materials available at the Santa Clara University Archives; for access to the other materials,
write Archivist, California Province of the Society of Jesus, P.O. Box 519, Los Gatos, CA 95031.
Hubbard, in his lectures, advanced the cause of Frederick Cook, who claimed to have reached the North Pole before Peary. This
collection represents material sent to Hubbard and Bernard Stanley by Mabel Shea, whose brother William Shea had researched
the controversy. The first two folders also contain correspondence with Helene Cook Vetter, Cook'sdaughter.
Bellarmine LaFortune Materials
Bellarmine LaFortune, S.J., was a missionary to the Eskimos of King Island, Alaska. Many of his papers, or copies of them,
were found with Hubbard's papers and have been placed at the end of
this collection. The xerox copies were all found in a three-ring binder labeled "Some of Fr. LaFortune's Papers, Collected
by Bernard Stanley." An explanation for Hubbard's possession of these papers may be found in the press release in Box 5, folder
44, which states that Hubbard edited some of Fr. LaFortune's papers for publication.
Edgar R. Levin Personal Papers (PP-Levin)
Levin accompanied Hubbard on several expeditions to Alaska in the 1930s. The Levin papers consist of two boxes (Hubbard boxes
13 & 14), containing materials that date from 1930-1960. The materials deal primarily with local events occuring in Alaska
at this time. Also included are various letters, news clippings, diaries, and lectur4e notebooks belonging to Levin.
Bernard Stanley Papers/John D. Hubbard Papers
The papers of these two family members were donated to the Archives in 1988, accessions numbers 988-030 and 988-038, respectively.
Bernard Stanley (1919-1951), nephew of Fr. Hubbard, accompanied Hubbard to King Island in 1937-1938 and in 1941. He collected
photographs and documents pertaining to the King Island native community and of the Hubbard expedition, as well as native
artifacts. After World War II, until his untimely death in Mexico, Stanley acted as Hubbard's business manager. From this
period survive press releases and other souvenirs of Hubbard's career.
Capt. John Dixon Hubbard (1879?-1960?) was the brother of Fr. Hubbard and recipient in 1914 of SCU's first degree of Engineer
of Mining. The two scrapbooks in the collection represent his interest in SCU, the activities of his brother, and in minerology.
The Hubbard Photograph & Film Collections
Hubbard's 10,913 Alaskan photographs were copied and indexed between 1984 and 1987 by the SCU Archives with a grant from the
National Science Foundation. Physically, the collection is organized geographically; 82 place names are included. The subject
guide to the collection contains 1897 names of persons, places, items and events.
Hubbard's Austrian photographs from the 1920's and his 1945 world tour photographs remain unarranged and unavailable for research.
In Spring 1993 the Hubbard Film Collection was deposited with the Human Studies Film Archives of the Smithsonian Institution.
Under the agreement, SCU retains ownership of the films and reserves the right to permit copying, but the HSFA will assume
responsibility for preservation and reference copying. SCU will be provided with video copies of the films as they are copied.
For other materials pertaining to Hubbard, see the following collections in the SCU Archives: Hubbard Photograph Collection,
Spearman Papers, Shipsey Papers, President's Papers, Weber Papers, and Student term papers. There are also Hubbard materials
in the collection of the California Province Archives of the Society of Jesus, as noted above, and in the De Saisset Art Gallery
and Museum on the Santa Clara campus.
Abbreviations for Geographical Locations
- AC
- Arctic Coast (520 photographs)
- ACK
- Aniakchak (293 photographs)
- AD
- Adak (1 photographs)
- AKU
- Akulurak (194 photographs)
- ALC
- Alcan Highway (93 photographs)
- ATN
- Akutan Island (201 photographs)
- ALI
- Aleutian Islands (27 photographs)
- AL
- Alaska (275 photographs)
- AM
- Alaska Maps (2 photographs)
- ANC
- Anchorage (25 photographs)
- AP
- Alaska Peninsula (26 photographs)
- ATU
- Attu (124 photographs)
- BER
- Bering Sea (73 photographs)
- BOG
- Bogoslof (142 photographs)
- BTI
- Barter Island (4 photographs)
- CHK
- Chignik (18 photographs)
- CLB
- Cape Lisburne (1 photographs)
- COL
- Cold Bay (83 photographs)
- COK
- Cook Inlet (6 photographs)
- CPW
- Cape Prince of Whales (42 photographs)
- DMI
- Diomede Island (27 photographs)
- DSB
- Disenchantment Bay (1 photographs)
- DTH
- Dutch Harbor (57 photographs)
- END
- Endicott Arm (190 photographs)
- FP
- False Pass (94 photographs)
- FRB
- Fairbanks (12 photographs)
- GLB
- Glacier Bay (20 photographs)
- GLH
- Glacier Highway (2 photographs)
- GMB
- Gambier Bay (25 photographs)
- GOA
- Gulf of Alaska (26 photographs)
- HAG
- Hagemeister (4 photographs)
- HCM
- Holy Cross Mission (422 photographs)
- HNS
- Haines (10 photographs)
- HWK
- Hawk Inlet (24 photographs)
- INP
- Inland Passage (41 photographs)
- JNU
- Juneau (623 photographs)
- KEN
- Kenai Lake (5 photographs)
- KET
- Ketchikan (132 photographs)
- KI
- King Island (2128 photographs)
- KJL
- Kejulic Bay (4 photographs)
- KOD
- Kodiak (82 photographs)
- KU
- Kukak Bay (10 photographs)
- KZB
- Kotzubue (120 photographs)
- LMS
- Limestone Inlet (3 photographs)
- MND
- Mendenhall Glacier (183 photographs)
- MSH
- Mt. Shasta (1 photographs)
- MTV
- Matanuska Valley (117 photographs)
- NOM
- Nome (151 photographs)
- NP
- North Pole (2 photographs)
- NTK
- Noatak (344 photographs)
- NU
- Nulato (104 photographs)
- PB
- Point Barrow (254 photographs)
- PH
- Point Hope (194 photographs)
- PL
- Point Lay (112 photographs)
- PR
- Peel River (2 photographs)
- PRI
- Pribiloff Island (33 photographs)
- PSM
- Pilgrim Springs Mission (97 photographs)
- PVH
- Perryville Harbor (18 photographs)
- SHV
- Shishaldin Volcano (57 photographs)
- SI
- Shrine Island (38 photographs)
- SIN
- Sinarek (1 photographs)
- SKS
- Shelikoff Straits (1 photographs)
- SLC
- Slocum Inlet (17 photographs)
- SLD
- Seldovia (1 photographs)
- SM
- St. Michael (92 photographs)
- SNS
- Snettisham Inlet (11 photographs)
- STK
- Sitka (3 photographs)
- SW
- Seward (61 photographs)
- TKH
- Taku Harbor (1085 photographs)
- TLQ
- Tulsequah (19 photographs)
- TRF
- Tracy Fiord (499 photographs)
- TWG
- Twin Glacier (34 photographs)
- UMI
- Unimak Island (232 photographs)
- UNK
- Unalakleet (232 photographs)
- VEN
- Veniaminof (74 photographs)
- VTS
- Valley of 10,000 Smokes (430 photographs)
- WH
- Whittier (1 photographs)
- WRG
- Wrangell Harbor (16 photographs)
- WRT
- Wainright (55 photographs)
- WW
- Wewak (1 photographs)
- YKB
- Yakutat Bay (184 photographs)
- YUK
- Yukon Delta River (89 photographs)