 |
| River View, Cathedral Rock, Yosemite by Carleton Watkins, 1861 |
For those of you who visited CHS to see our recent exhibit, Yosemite:
A Storied Landscape, and were awed by the spectacular nineteenth
century mammoth plate photographs of Carleton Watkins, you might like to know
that the handful of images on display were just a small selection of prints by
Watkins that are part of CHS’ collections.
Recently, sixty-seven of Watkins’ mammoth plate photographs of Yosemite were
processed and cataloged.
 |
| Yosemite Falls from Glacier Point by Carleton Watkins, 1879-1881 |
Watkins made the photographs during several trips to Yosemite over the course of years. His
photographs of 1861 have special significance.
It was in 1861, two years after Charles Leander Weed made the first
photographs of Yosemite, that Watkins decided to have a unique camera
constructed that could accommodate 18 x 24 inch wet glass-plate negatives
(because of their size they are commonly called mammoth plates) and a new type of wide angle lens, which would
enable him to capture more of Yosemite’s grandeur in each image. Watkins photographs of 1861 were exhibited at
the Goupil Gallery in New York in December of 1862, and California Senator John Conness is
thought to have shown them to Abraham Lincoln the following year. If this is true, these photographs most
surely played a part in Lincoln’s decision to sign the Yosemite Grant Act of
1864, which set aside and protected the land for “public use, resort, and
recreation.”
 |
| Nevada Fall, Yosemite by Carleton Watkins, 1861 |
Living in a time when taking a photograph can be accomplished
by the split-second push of a button on a cell phone, it’s worthwhile (not to
mention, mind-boggling) to stop and think about what amazing effort it took to
make photographs such as these. Using
mules, Watkins packed in two thousand pounds of equipment over seventy-five miles from Mariposa to Yosemite Valley. Along with the cameras and glass plates, he
would have brought a dark tent for developing, tripods, plate holders, lenses,
and volatile chemicals. He would have trekked
all these supplies to dizzying and precarious vantage points. This is to say nothing of the bugs, dirt, and
sun that could wreak havoc on the glass plates covered with collodion, a
gelatinous liquid made of gun cotton, ether, and alcohol. The result of this massive endeavor is a body
of work that has never been surpassed, though Eadweard Muybridge would soon
create his own magnificent mammoth plate prints to stand alongside those of
Watkins.
 |
| El Capitan, Yosemite by Carleton Watkins, 1861 |
The California Historical Society holds collections of
Yosemite mammoth plate prints and stereographs by Carleton Watkins and Eadweard
Muybridge, as well as work by George Fiske, Ansel Adams, Gustav Fagersteen, and
many unknown amateur photographers. These
collections are available to researchers for viewing in our library. We do require advance notice to view the
Watkins and Muybridge collections.
Please contact our reference desk to make an appointment: reference@calhist.org.
The finding aid to the Carleton Watkins mammoth plate photographs
of Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove, 1861-1881 is available on the Online Archive of
California: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8057k72/
Additional Yosemite photographs from our collections can be
viewed on our Flickr Commons page:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chs_commons/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chs_commons/
Wendy Welker
Archivist & Librarian
