An Old Growth Photo Album of North America
Tuesday February 19, 2008
An amazing collection of American environmental photographs was compiled and cataloged by faculty, staff and students of the Department of Botany at the University of Chicago from the 1890s to the 1930s. Those expeditions mainly focused on forests, trees and woody stem plants resulting in a vast portfolio of tree and forest photos, some taken over 100 years ago.The earliest photographs in the collection were taken in 1891 in the arid desert landscapes of California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. The latest images were made in the Hawaiian Islands in 1936. Cameras accompanied faculty and students on field trips across the United States. The 4,500 photographs taken documented natural environments, ecologies, and plant communities across the nation. They capture forever the character and the wide range of an American forest at the turn of the last century. A search by tree species is included.
Sequoia gigantea Photo - American Environmental Photographs Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library
Comments
Steve,
I was viewing the desert catagory of the slides taken 1891 - 1939. Several were listed as locations in SW Arizona. Noted plants that were shown in several shots looked liked boojum trees, a member of the Ocotillo Family (Fouquieriacea). These plants to my knowledge are found only in Baja California, Mexico. Maybe the expedition got a bit lost or perhaps this is pre-Gadsen Purchase where southern Arizona (Yuma area) was still part of Mexico. (?)