Archives West Finding Aid

The Ole Anderson photographs are primarily images of wildlife and buildings in and around the Mammoth Hot Springs area. A few images are of the Anderson family, other Park locations, and possibly buildings near Helena. Original captions for the photographs are unknown, as the writing on the deteriorating paper envelopes which were present during processing rarely matched the subject of the enclosed negative. On those rare occasions when the caption did match, the words are presented within quotation marks in the inventory. The negatives have been sequentially numbered and divided into six groups: #1-57 are 5 × 7" glass plate negatives; #58-109 are 4 × 5" glass plate negatives; #110-137 are 3 1/4 × 6 1/2" stereoview glass plate negatives; #138-232 are paired 3 1/4" nitrate negatives linked by metal channel clips to produce stereoviews; #233-255 are single frame 3 1/4" negatives which may have once had a matching stereoview image; #256-263 are larger format single frame nitrate negatives. All of the glass plate negatives, #1-137, have been used to produce the positive contact prints which have been placed in box 5. All of the nitrate negatives, #138-263, were developed on film produced before 1903 when manufacturers introduced gelatin coating to reduce curling, and many are curled too tightly to produce a clear print. These negatives, located in box 4, are unavailable for research use until they have been digitally scanned. Due to an error when the collection was first inventoried in 1993, images #1-137 were numbered according to a series of 35mm copy negatives made from the contact prints. These 35mm copy negatives were then used to identify the originals without regard to any subject order. As a result, the sequential numbers assigned during the processing of this collection follow no discernable pattern of arrangement beyond physical format.