Stereoviews of the U.S. Geographical Survey Expedition West of the 100th Meridian of 1873, 1873

Summary

Creators:

Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Extent:

44 photographic prints ; stereograph, albumen ; 10 x 18 cm. 44 digital objects

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

This collection from the U.S. Geographical Survey Expedition of 1873 consists of 44 stereographs, photographed by Timothy H. O'Sullivan. Includes views from the Arizona Series, the New Mexico Series, the Colorado River Series, the Geological Series, the Indian Series, and the Historic Series. Images include Apache Lake, Sierra Blanca Range, Apache, Zuni and Navajo Indians, North Fork Canyon, Cooley's Park, Canyon de Chelly, Blackwater Canyon, Inscription Rock and Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, Paria Creek, and others. The photographer's numbers are retained for the numbering system, which account for the gaps in numbering. Printed captions below the photographs are reprinted in the container listing.

Biographical / historical:

Timothy H. O'Sullivan was born in 1840. He learned photography at the New York gallery of Mathew Brady, and accompanied Brady on a Civil War photography assignment. In 1863 O'Sullivan left Brady to establish his own gallery in Washington D.C. He published a series of "Photographic Incidents of the War" (1862-1865). In 1867 he joined the Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel, led by Clarence King, which was the first of the four great post-war surveys carried out by the United States Government. This expedition explored the area from the eastern edge of the Sierras and across the great Basin to the front range of the Rocky Mountains.

After three years as King's photographer, O'Sullivan was appointed Photographer to the Darien Surveying Expedition in 1870 by the Secretary of the Navy. The purpose of this expedition was to report to the government on possible routes for a ship canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He returned to the West in 1871 with the Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, commanded by Lieutenant George M .Wheeler of the Corps of Engineers. The party surveyed Owens Valley, Death Valley, and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Most of O'Sullivan's photographs during this expedition were ruined in transit. O'Sullivan was transferred back to a Clarence King survey in 1872, to a team that went to Wyoming. In the winter of 1872-1873, O'Sullivan printed two sets of his King survey photographs for an exhibition at the World's Fair in Vienna in 1873. In 1873 O'Sullivan accompanied Wheeler once again, this time to Arizona and New Mexico, photographing the mysterious Native American ruins of Canyon de Chelly, San Miguel Church in Santa Fe, and Zuni Pueblo. In 1874 he visited the West for the last time, working in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and Idaho. He became photographer to the U.S. Treasury Department in 1880. O'Sullivan died of tuberculosis in Staten Island in 1882.

(Sources: Dingus, Rich. The Photographic Artifacts of Timothy O'Sullivan. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1982, pp. 4, 12-13; Newhall, Beaumont and Nancy. T. H. O'Sullivan: Photographer. Rochester, N.Y.: The George Eastman House, in collaboration with The Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1966.)

Acquisition information:

Unknown

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

Website