Inventory of the Peers Family Photograph Albums MC348

Language of Material: English

Contributing Institution: University of California, Davis General Library, Dept. of Special Collections

Title: Peers Family Photograph Albums

creator: Peers Family

Identifier/Call Number: MC348

Physical Description: 615 photoprints. Contained in two albums

Date (inclusive): 1910-1929

Abstract: [Colfax and other places in California: 1910-1926]. 615 photographs, varying sizes from 2.25 x 3.25 to 5 x 7 inches, with a few larger format images, in two oblong, string-tied albums.

Physical Location: Researchers should contact Archives and Special Collections to request collections, as many are stored offsite.

Photograph albums containing nearly 620 images of sanitaria founded by Dr. Robert Alway Peers in and around Colfax, California, the activities of their patients, and the lives of the head doctor, his family, and staff. Peers was originally from Toronto and settled in California at the end of the 19th century. He purchased a property Colfax in 1907 that served as a small, but continually expanding sanitarium from 1911 until after World War II. After brief service in the medical corps of the U.S. Army during the Great War, Peers returned to Colfax in 1919 and established the Weimar Joint Sanitarium, which took in tuberculosis patients from fifteen northern and central California counties. In addition to his duties as the head doctor at several sanitaria in the state, Peers was also a member of the State Board of Health from 1915 to 1932 and the Mayor of Colfax from 1922 to 1945. The photographs in the first, larger album which contains nearly 350 images, depict the first hospital that Peers established in Colfax and some of its expansions. "Less than ten years into his time at Colfax, Dr. Peers established a hospital in town for the treatment of TB. He soon increased the bed capacity by adding cottages on the hillside adjacent to the hospital. A short while later he expanded further by adding a group of cottages for patients in an area among the pine trees called The Colony a short distance from town" -- Staab.

The images show the facilities, such as the first house that Peers bought in Colfax for the institution, and several of the houses and other structures he built around the original property as well as those constructed at "The Colony." This album is further filled with many images of patients and staff, many of which are well captioned with identifications of each person depicted in the images. As well, there are many photos of events and activities at the sanitarium and colony, including fashion shows, "Days of '49" occasions, play weddings with cross dressers, and much more; the images also include numerous shots of the patients in more obvious hospital and treatment settings. The second album is more personal, and was compiled by Robert Peers' son, Hamilton. In additional to numerous images of the "Old Hospital," this album, which contains 270 images, also shows images of Peers family in Colfax and of Hamilton's childhood and upbringing there, including images with Dr. Peers. The album further includes photos from several trips taken by the Peers family in California, Washington, and France, and also contains several images relating to Dr. Peers' World War I service. Together, the two albums comprise a valuable record of this important, early 20th-century institution for tuberculosis patients in Northern California and of life and treatment under the care of a significant medical figure on the West Coast during the first half of the 1900s, Dr. Robert Peers.

Collection is open for research.

Jared Campbell created this finding aid with information supplied by McBride Rare Books.

Purchased from McBride Rare Books

[Identification of item], Peers Family Photograph Albums, MC348, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.

All applicable copyrights for the collection are protected under chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California as the owner of the physical items. It is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.