Archives West Finding Aid

The collection includes 1200 images, labeled negatives, nitrate negatives, prints, unidentified images, and scrapbooks, showing the results of environmental change on farm land especially due to erosion from 1930 into the 1960s. Though focused on that change in the Palouse region, the collection includes images from other agricultural regions in the U.S. and some from other countries. Additional images of interest include some of Washington State College buildings and personnel and of the Snake River canyon in the early 1930s.

Series 1: Identified images, 1930-1965. This series consists of more than 800 images, most individually identified, with original captions and image numbers retained but then re-numbered sequentially.

Series 2: Scrapbook pages, 1930 to 1960s. This series includes scrapbook pages with mounted, captioned photographs as well as miscellaneous items including photographs of agriculture-associated buildings, activities, and students and staff at Washington State College. The scrapbook pages document activities at the Palouse Station as well as other soil erosion experiment stations in the US.

Series 3: Unidentified images by topic, [1930s-1960s]. The images in this series are identified broadly by topics and grouped accordingly in thirteen subseries with original numbers retained. Image numbers are listed for each topic, but where identifying information was available that image is itemized.

For images, the original detailed captions, when available, were retained as was the filing sequence and original print and negative numbers, though the photographs/negatives were re-numbered sequentially. In some cases, a print produced from a negative received a separate original number, but, whenever possible, prints were matched with the negative in this collection's sequential system. The scrapbooks contain many mounted prints that may match unidentified prints/negatives.