Archives West Finding Aid
Table of Contents
Stewart Holbrook photograph collection, approximately 1902-1965
Overview of the Collection
- Collector
- Holbrook, Stewart Hall, 1893-1964
- Title
- Stewart Holbrook photograph collection
- Dates
- approximately 1902-1965 (inclusive)18971970
approximately 1933-1965 (bulk)19281970 - Quantity
-
1769 photographic prints
101 negatives : nitrate
217 film copy negatives
2 blueprints - Collection Number
- PH0511
- Summary
- Photographs of Holbrook's family and friends; career related events; investigative travels; and topical files
- Repository
-
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu - Access Restrictions
The collection is open to the public.
- Additional Reference Guides
- Languages
- English
Biographical NoteReturn to Top
Stewart Hall Holbrook emerged from logging camps to become, in the words of Lewis Gannett, “the only ex-lumberjack who has lectured at Harvard University on American history.” Holbrook, the “Lumberjack Boswell,” was born in Vermont on August 12, 1893. His father bounced around North America, taking the young Stewart with him, until dying suddenly in Manitoba. Now a teenager, Stewart found himself deposited alone on the Canadian plains. He survived with various jobs, including reporting for a Winnipeg newspaper and performing in a traveling dramatic stock company, before serving in France as an artillery sergeant during the First World War. After the war, he bought a round-trip ticket to British Columbia, curious to see the big trees he had heard about. He took employment in a logging camp, and was so enamored with the work and the region that he cashed in his return ticket. He spent the next three years as a clerk in isolated logging camps, while writing articles and drawing popular cartoons for the British Columbia Lumberman at night. His desire to pursue his writing career propelled him to Portland in 1923, lured by “the finest public library in the West.”
He spent the rest of the decade dividing his time between writing stories and freelance articles and the editing work that provided a semblance of a steady income. This precarious career crashed with the Great Depression. “The mss market,” he lamented, “is as bad off as the so-called stock market.” Despite the lean years, he persevered, and was enjoying renewed success by the mid-1930s. He completed his first book during this time, but at least the first three publishers he solicited thought the manuscript warranted only a rejection slip. Finally, the Macmillian Company decided to publish it in 1938. Holy Old Mackinaw: A Natural History of the American Lumberjack spent five months on national best-seller lists. Fortified by the prospect of additional successes, he moved to Boston and began cranking out a steady and swift stream of additional books on a wide variety of historical subjects, establishing himself as one of the country’s most popular historians. He returned to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1940s to head the newly-created Keep Washington Green organization. The nonprofit corporation, grounded in the private forest industry and actively endorsed by the U.S. Forest Service and state government, popularized the problem of forest fire much as Smokey Bear would begin to do a few years later. Out of his work for the Keep Washington Green movement, Holbrook wrote Burning an Empire, the first, and for decades the only, history of wildlands fire.
Holbrook purposely set himself apart from academic history and the “timidity and woodenness usual to professors.” He disliked the use of footnotes and presented his work as an alternative to what he saw as the arid and colorless output of “stuffed-shirt historians.” He also wanted to resurrect important individuals neglected by academic history, a goal most explicitly followed in his 1946 Lost Men of American History. If his deliberate attempt to write “low-brow” history sprang from his inclinations, it also had a very practical dimension. Unlike most academic historians, Holbrook enjoyed neither a college paycheck nor fellowships; his income depended upon writing books that would sell in sufficient quantities. Yet, despite his zeal to write popular history, he never abandoned the desire to infuse his work with high literary quality. He never did resolve the tension between the often competing demands of the market and the muse.
He moved back to Portland in the mid-1940s, this time permanently, and continued his prolific production. He also undertook a second career, as the popular oil painter “Mr. Otis.” Through Mr. Otis, Holbrook poked fun at the pretensions of modern art, while individual pieces such as “Someone has been here before us Meriwether” and “I was with Custer said the old man” allowed him to deflate myths surrounding the Little Big Horn and the “overly sentimental cult of the pioneer.” In keeping with his mischievous personality, he never publicly admitted being Mr. Otis, whom he heralded as the founder of the “Primitive-Moderne School” of art. (The final "e" in moderne was indispensable, according to Holbrook. “It makes the word foreign hence fashionable.”)
In the early 1960s, Holbrook suffered a series of incapacitating strokes which essentially curtailed his literary and artistic production. He died from complications of a heart attack in September 1964.
Holbrook published some of his crime stories under pseudonyms. These include: Marcus M. Clark, Chris K. Stanton, Stanley Underwood, Ethan O. Allen and Lee Howard. He also used the pseudonyms, Stewart Hall or Dutch in theater work.
Content DescriptionReturn to Top
The collection contains photographs and drawings from Holbrook's personal life, literary career, investigative travels, and artistic endeavors, as well as photographs for some of his publications.
Use of the CollectionReturn to Top
Restrictions on Use
Restrictions may exist on reproduction, quotation, or publication. Contact Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries for details.
Administrative InformationReturn to Top
Processing Note
Minimally processed.
The photographs were relocated from the Stewart Hall Holbrook Papers, Accession No. 0701-001, in the repository in 1996.
Related Materials
See also the Stewart H. Holbrook Mr. Otis Paintings Collection, PH Coll 425 and the Stewart Holbrook Papers, Mss. Acc. Nos. 0701, 0961, 1272 in the repository.
Detailed Description of the CollectionReturn to Top
Box 1Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
1/1 | Framed photograph of Stewart Holbrook as a young
child |
undated |
1/2 | Portraits and caricatures of Stewart
Holbrook 1 pen and colored pencil sketch; 4 photographs
|
undated |
1/3 | Holbrook's career: Mr. Otis promotional
events 14 photographs
|
circa 1958-1960 |
1/4 | Holbrook's career: Mr. Otis and artistic
endeavors 14 black and white photographs
|
circa 1951-1965 |
1/5 | Holbrook's time in the military 7 sepia and black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
1/6 | Holbrook family, Grandmother Holbrook, Orcsel Holbrook,
Charlotte Holbrook 4 tintypes, 1 framed photograph, 6 photographs
|
|
1/7 | Stewart Holbrook 37 photographs
|
undated |
1/8 | Holbrook family 34 photographs
|
undated |
1/9 | Various Holbrook family reunions and parties 32 photographs
|
undated |
1/10 | Holbrook family and friends' trips and visits to the
Eastern United States 38 black-and-white and color photographs
|
undated |
1/11 | Sibyl (Mrs. Stewart) Holbrook 31 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
1/12 | Stewart Holbrook and unidentified
individuals 36 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
1/13 | Identified friends of Stewart Holbrook 22 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
1/14 | Individuals, mostly unidentified 46 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
1/15 | Photographs and "at-home" cards of Stewart and Sibyl
Holbrook 16 black-and-white photographs, two "at-home" cards
|
undated |
1/16 | Identified Holbrook family members 9 sepia photographs
|
undated |
1/17 | Photographs and business card of various locations and
people, mostly unidentified 12 black-and-white photographs, 1 business card
|
undated |
1/18 | Notebook of drawings by Holbrook 1 item
|
1912 |
Box 1aReturn to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
1a/1 | Author cards of Stewart Holbrook 4 black-and-white author cards
|
undated |
1a/2 | Stewart Holbrook at work 5 black-and-white photographs
|
1950, 1953, undated |
1a/3 | Studio photographs of Stewart Holbrook 11 sepia and black-and-white photographs
|
1935, 1937, 1944, undated |
1a/4 | Studio photographs of Stewart Holbrook 7 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
1a/5 | Stewart Holbrook 18 black-and-white photographs
|
1956-1960, undated |
Box 2Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
2/1 | Topical files: Logging industry and sawmills,
lumberjacks, yarding, spar trees, loading, logging camps 54 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
2/2 | Publications:Tall
Timber 9 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
2/3 | General subject files: Logging - Logging
operations 24 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/4 | General subject files: Logging - Trains 8 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/5 | General subject files: Logging 29 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/6 | General subject files: Logging - Transportation.
Railroads, tractors, log rafts, horses/oxen 23 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/7 | General subject files: Logging. Brooks-Scanlon Lumber
Co., Bend, Ore., Simpson Camp, Coos Bay Lumber Co. 23 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1949, undated |
2/8 | General subject files: Logging. 25 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1903, 1904, 1908, 1928, 1935, 1938, 1940, undated |
2/9 | General subject files: Logging. Camp life -
identified Empty folder
|
|
2/10 | General subject files: Logging. Camp life 8 black-and-white photographs
|
1911, undated |
2/11 | Publication photos: Articles. Logging 3 black-and-white photograph
|
1941 |
2/12 | Topical files: Forestry 33 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/13 | General subject files: Logging. Mills (identified).
Cadillac Handle Co., Cross Village, Wash., Ingram-Kennedy Lumber Co, Eau
Claire, Cosmopolis 7 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1865, 1928, undated |
2/14 | Investigative travel: logging camp visits,
Oregon 10 black-and-white photographs
|
1890, 1951, 1956, undated |
2/15 | General subject files: Logging - Logging operations
(identified). Union Lumber Co., Fort Bragg, Grassy Bay Timber Co., Silver Falls
Timber Co., Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co., 7 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1922, 1933, undated |
2/16 | Logging camps - Ruined or abandoned 19 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1915, 1927, 1935, 1937, 1938, undated |
2/17 | Women in lumber mills, World War II 10 black-and-white photographs
|
between 1941-1945 |
2/18 | Logging - Competitive shows and exhibitions 23 black-and-white photographs
|
1937, 1938, undated |
2/19 | Publication photographs:Lost Men
of American History 15 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
2/20 | Publication photographs:None More
Courageous: American War Heroes 18 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
2/21 | Publication photographs:Machines
of Plenty: Pioneering in American Agriculture 20 sepia and black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
2/22 | Publication photographs:Little
Annie Oakley and other Rugged People 18 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
undated |
2/23 | Railroads - General 22 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1900, 1957, 1958, undated |
2/24 | Publication photographs: "Railroad book" [
Story of American Railroads] 4 black-and-white photographs
|
1947, undated |
2/25 | Oregon & California Railroad Company locomotive and
the Ephraim Shay House, grave, and shop 4 black-and-white photographs
|
1870/1949, 1961 |
Box 3Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
3/1 | Publications:Burning an
Empire:"Minnesota Fires" 13 items
|
1918, 1942, undated |
3/2 | Publications: "Brundage Mtn. Lookout" 19 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
3/3 | Washington and Oregon fires 18 black-and-white photographs
|
1902, 1928, 1937-1939, 1941, undated |
3/4 | Forest fires 52 black-and-white photographs
|
1943, undated |
3/5 | Forest Hill, Calif. and Ouachita National Forest, Ark.
fires 5 black-and-white photographs
|
1910, 1937, 1938, 1942 |
3/6 | Publications: "The Last of Bunco Kelley" 6 black-and-white photographs
|
1907, undated |
3/7 | Topical files: "Crime - Whodunit"; includes photographs
of Coos Bay, Ore. and the Clackamas River 17 black-and-white photographs
|
1935, undated |
3/8 | Publication photographs: (miscellaneous/unidentified
"true crime") 57 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1906, 1925, 1935, 1938, undated |
3/9 | Pictures for articles: "Incidents" 3 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1906, 1909, undated |
3/10 | General subject files: Drugstores, American - 19th
century Drugstore, First and Main Streets., Portland, Oregon. ca. 1886-87.
Plummer Drug Co., Third and Madison, Portland, Ore. ca. 1890-1900. American
Pharmacy, circa 1860. 3 items
|
1886/7, undated |
3/11 | Individuals, mostly identified 18 photographs
|
1936, undated |
3/12 | Pictures for articles: landscape/scenery 7 black-and-white photographs
|
1940, 1950, undated |
3/13 | Pictures for articles: miscellaneous 6 black-and-white photographs; 1 pencil and ink sketch
|
undated |
3/14 | Investigative travel: New England 25 black-and-white and color photographs
|
1912, 1936, 1937, 1947, 1956-1960 |
3/15 | Investigative travel: Oregon--other
locations 6 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1936, undated |
3/16 | Investigative travel: tree farms, forestry sites, Oregon
and Washington 10 black-and-white photographs
|
1941, 1943, undated |
3/17 | Investigative travel: British Columbia ("Trip to
headwaters of Columbia") 28 black-and-white photographs
|
1953 |
3/18 | Investigative travel: Upper Midwest (logging country,
Wisconsin and Michigan) 15 items
|
1937, 1938, undated |
3/19 | Investigative travel: Kootenai Falls, MT 5 black-and-white photographs
|
1953, undated |
3/20 | Photographs of a page from Holbrook's scrapbook, a river
scene, the glass bottle fence constructed by Henry Stephens, and a group of
foreign editors on a dock 8 photographs
|
undated |
3/21 | Hotel Monticello, Longview, WA; aerial view of Aberdeen
and Hoquiam, WA 2 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1923, undated |
3/22 | Bijou Theater, Minneapolis, MN; Venus Alley, Butte,
MT 2 black-and-white photographs
|
1937, 1959 |
3/23 | Natural hot water pool, Burgdorf, ID; former house of
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Burgdorf, Burgdorf, ID 2 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
3/24 | Topical files: Representational art used in taverns,
etc. Erickson's saloon at 2nd and Burnside, Portland, Ore. 7 black-and-white and color photographs
|
undated |
3/25 | Subject files: Oregon - Portland. The Castle, First
Congregational Church, Men's Resort (corner of Fourth and Burnside), Union
Station, Portland Press Club (interior), Corbett Mansion
(interior). 15 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
1932, 1936, 1957, 1958, undated |
3/26 | Interior and exterior photographs of mostly unidentified
structures 11 black-and-white photographs
|
undated |
3/27 | Topical files: Interior views of Admiralty Hotel, Port
Ludlow. Photographed by John Cress. 17 sepia photographs
|
undated |
Box 4Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
4/1 | Photographs of authors 38 black-and-white and color photographs
|
1941, 1944, 1951, 1953-1957, undated |
4/2 | Professional life: photographs from various Holbrook
speaking engagements 35 black-and-white and color photographs
|
1942, 1946-1948, 1952, 1953, 1957-1960, 1962, undated |
4/3 | Holbrook with a young man holding copies of
Burning an EmpireandTall
Timber; Holbrook with Ben W. Olcott; Oswald West 7 black-and-white photographs
|
circa 1911-1915, 1947, |
4/4 | Professional life: photographs related to the Industrial
Workers of the World 3 black-and-white photographs
|
1926, 1946, undated |
4/5 | Professional life: Holbrook at commencement events,
including Willamette University, Salem, Ore., Pacific University, Forest Grove,
Ore., and University of Colorado. 16 black-and-white photographs
|
1957, 1959, 1962, undated |
4/6 | Professional life: Holbrook book signings 11 black-and-white photographs
|
1938, 1946, 1950, 1957, undated |
4/7 | Professional life: Holbrook at a party, the dedication
of the Clemons Tree Farm, the Chapman School, and the Forest Grove, Ore.
Barbershop Ballad Contest 8 black-and-white photographs
|
1948, 1951, 1952, undated |
4/8 | Professional life: Holbrook delivering speeches at
writers' conferences and historical society events, and attending Mr. and Mrs.
Edward Stamm's 31st anniversary with Crown Zellerbach Corporation 13 black-and-white photographs
|
1950, 1954, 1957-1959 |
4/9 | Professional life: Holbrook at the Pacific Logging
Congress, Forest Products Library Opening, and Distinguished Forest Service
Banquet 13 black-and-white photographs
|
1947, 1958-1960, undated |
4/10 | Professional life: Holbrook's workspaces, dedication of
the Stewart H. Holbrook Memorial Tree Farm, and Holbrook at the Colebrook
Academy Reunion 7 black-and-white, sepia, and color photographs
|
1950, 1960, 1964, undated |
4/11 | Professional life: Holbrook at Press Club parties and
assorted office events 7 black-and-white photographs
|
1947-1949, 1954, undated |
4/12 | Holbrook at a "Keep Washington Green" event 6 black-and-white and sepia photographs
|
June 5, 1940 |
4/13 | Ephemera: sketches forMurder
Out Yondercover and a bookplate for M.T. Dunten, bookplates, parodies of
theFour L Lumber News, cartoons of a tiger and a
policeman, fake money, a cartoon accompanying a news blurb, a sketch by Torell
promoting the "Progress Restaurant", sketches of a ship and a man in profile,
letter to Holbrook from Charles E. Hoonan 23 items
|
1931, 1932, 1960, undated |
Box 5Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
5/1 | Album with photographs and photographic postcards. World
War I (1918-1919) images onboard ship "Santa Rosa" and France. James Logging
Co., Mission, B.C. (1920); Logging camp, Grassy Bay, B.C. (1921-1922); family
and friends (?) 1 album containing 92 photographs and photographic postcards,
1 loose photograph
|
circa 1918-1922 |
5/2 | Photograph album entitled "Some pictures taken during my
wanderings". Images from Holbrook's childhood, ca. 1910; Winnipeg, Ontario,
1913; Newport, 1912. 1 album containing 135 photographs
|
circa 1910-1912 |
5/3 | Photograph album. Images of an unidentified location
(probably East Coast) showing logging company mill, pulp boom, power house, and
various identified and unidentified individuals. 1 album containing 53 photographs
|
circa 1916-1920 |
Box 6Return to Top
Container(s) | Description |
---|---|
Box | |
6 | Copy negatives |
Box 7Return to Top
Container(s) | Description |
---|---|
Box | |
7 | Nitrate negatives |
Box 8Return to Top
Container(s) | Description |
---|---|
Box | |
8 | Nitrate negatives |
Box 9Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
9/1 | Cardboard easel displays promotingHoly Old Mackinaw 2 items
|
circa late 1930s-1940s |
9/2 | Blueprints for unknown Seattle-related
exhibit 3 items
|
undated |
9/3 | Cardboard easel displays promotingMurder out YonderandLost Men of
American History 2 items
|
circa 1940s-1950s |
9/4 | Color sketch of Liverpool Liz 1 item
|
undated |
9/5 | Hand-drawn maps of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas;
Canada, New York, and Pennsylvania; the Pacific Northwest; the Northeast;
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa; Canada, Michigan, Indiana, and
Ohio 6 items
|
undated |
Box 10Return to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
Box/Folder | ||
10/1 | Two women in an automobile by a river; Holbrook with
some of "Mr. Otis's'" paintings 2 photographs
|
circa 1900s/circa 1930s-1940s |
10/2 | Map of Paul Revere's ride 1 item
|
after 1929 |
10/3 | Drawings of Holbrook's various "lives" 10 items
|
undated |
10/4 | Calligraphic sign for paintings by Mr. Otis 1 item
|
undated |
10/5 | Sketch of Holbrook; perspective drawing; "The Holdout"
cartoon by Howard Fisher, inscribed to Holbrook 3 items
|
1953, undated |
Oversize FolderReturn to Top
Container(s) | Description | Dates |
---|---|---|
mapcase | ||
M271 | Log marks used at Muskegon Mill District, Michigan from
1870-1890 On 2 sheets of blueprint paper.
Names are identified under illustrations.
|
between 1935 and 1940? |
Names and SubjectsReturn to Top
Subject Terms
- Visual Materials Collections (University of Washington)