View XML QR Code

Hazel W. Niendorff Scrapbooks on North Pacific Marine Casualties and Maritime History, circa 1920s-1960s

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Niendorff, Hazel W. (Hazel Wood), 1898-1991
Title
Hazel W. Niendorff Scrapbooks on North Pacific Marine Casualties and Maritime History
Dates
circa 1920s-1960s (inclusive)
Quantity
74 scrapbooks and 5 maps, (approximately 16 cubic feet)
Collection Number
1989.83_2007.61 (collection)
Summary
Scrapbooks of materials about marine casualties and maritime history in the Pacific Northwest from the 16th century to the 1960s.
Repository
Museum of History & Industry, Sophie Frye Bass Library

P.O. Box 80816
Seattle, WA
98108
Telephone: 2063241126 x102
library@mohai.org
Access Restrictions

The collection is open to the public by appointment.

Languages
English.
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Return to Top

Biographical Note

Hazel (Wood) Niendorff (1898-1991) worked in the Seattle Chamber of Commerce in the Research and Statistical Department in the 1920s. Married to Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Fred Niendorff, Hazel Niendorff had a passion for maritime history, particularly for the history of maritime disasters; she made a lifelong project of researching, collecting and organizing materials to create a comprehensive record of North Pacific marine disasters. Niendorff was considered an authority in the field, and was solicited in the 1960s to serve on the review board for Gordon Newell's The H. W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest.

Return to Top

Content Description

The bulk of the collection consists of scrapbooks about marine disasters and maritime history in the North Pacific, from the 16th century through the 1960s, with the bulk of the materials concerning the period from approximately the 1850s through the 1930s. Niendorff compiled the scrapbooks beginning in the 1920s and continued through the 1960s, though only a few scrapbooks list the date of their compilation. The territory covered in the scrapbooks ranges from the coast of California, north past Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, as well as around Siberia. The scrapbooks are comprised of newspapers clippings from the 1920s-1960s, transcriptions from earlier newspapers and transcriptions from old books on maritime history, such as Lewis and Dryden's 1895 Marine History of the Pacific Northwest and Alexander Starbuck's History of the American Whale Fishery, From its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876.

The scrapbooks also contain brochures and pamphlets, information Niendorff collected from government records, correspondence, as well as original writing by Niendorff, including lists of sailing vessels and shipwrecks, and narrative chronologies of disasters. Materials within the scrapbooks sometimes overlap, as Niendorff compiled the scrapbooks based variously on casualties, geographical location, industries such as lumber, wheat, whaling and fur trading, and individual people. Many of the geographically themed scrapbooks represent locations associated with Northwest lumber mills, such as Port Gamble, Port Blakeley, Port Ludlow, Port Madison, Port Discovery, Utsalady and Seabeck.

The collection also includes Navy pilot and current charts of the North Pacific from the 1930s and one map of British Columbia. Other materials unrelated to maritime history include a scrapbook of clippings on Salomon August Andree's 1897 fatal balloon flight to the Arctic, an index to the holdings of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Alaska Bureau library, and a series of scrapbooks concerning the development of Seattle.

Return to Top

Use of the Collection

Alternative Forms Available

The following volumes of the scrapbooks are available in digital format: Volumes 1-23, 26-29, 31-36, 40-47, and 51-66.

Restrictions on Use

Digital copies must be used in place of original scrapbooks when available. Contact the repository for more information.

The Museum of History & Industry is the owner of the materials in the Sophie Frye Bass Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from MOHAI before any reproduction use. The museum does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.

Preferred Citation

Hazel W. Niendorff Scrapbooks on North Pacific Marine Casualties and Maritime History, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle

Return to Top

Administrative Information

Arrangement

Arranged into series and subseries:

  • Scrapbooks
    • Marine Disasters
    • Pacific Northwest Maritime History
    • Seattle
  • Maps and charts
  • Other materials

Location of Collection

12a.1.6-13 (scrapbooks)

Location of Collection

Map drawers VII.a.20, VII.b.20 (maps)

Location of Collection

5a.2.1 (microfilms)

Acquisition Information

Gift of William W. Niendorff, September 8, 1989 (Accession No. 1989.83) and of William and Gayle Niendorff, November 26, 2007 (Accession No. 2007.31).

Processing Note

The collection consists of two accessions received from the donor several years apart, Accession No. 1989.83 and Accession No. 2007.61.

Due to the fragile condition of the scrapbooks, microfilm copies were made of most of the volumes. MOHAI received a Washington Preservation Initiative grant to preserve the scrapbooks, which were microfilmed in 2004 by OCLC Digital Collection & Preservation Services. In 2023, digital copies of these microfilms were made by Backstage Library Works.

Gaps in numbering are a result of the transfer of items (books and pamphlets) to other collections within the repository.

Separated Materials

Books and pamphlets received with Accession No. 1989.83 were transferred to the book and pamphlet collections in the repository.

Brochures, pamphlets and ephemera received with Accession No. 2007.61 were transferred to the pamphlet and ephemera collections in the repository.

Return to Top

Detailed Description of the Collection

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Fur trade--Northwest, Pacific
  • Lumber trade--Northwest, Pacific
  • Marine accidents--North Pacific Ocean
  • Navigation--Northwest, Pacific--History
  • Shipping--Northwest, Pacific--History
  • Shipwrecks--North Pacific Ocean
  • Wheat trade--Northwest, Pacific

Geographical Names

  • United States--Washington (State)--Wenatchee
  • United States--Washington (State)--Grays Harbor County
  • United States--Washington (State)--Kitsap County--Seabeck
  • United States--Washington (State)--Okanogan County
  • United States--Washington (State)--Port Blakeley
  • United States--Washington (State)--Port Discovery
  • United States--Washington (State)--Port Gamble
  • United States--Washington (State)--Port Ludlow
  • United States--Washington (State)--Port Madison
  • United States--Washington (State)--Yakima River Valley

Form or Genre Terms

  • Clippings
  • Photographic prints
  • Scrapbooks

Finding aid prepared by Jody Hendrickson
2007

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

About Creative Commons Licenses in Archives West

Loading...
Loading...