Olaf Pitt Jenkins (1889-1983) was a professor of Economic Geology at the State College of Washington from 1916-1918 before leaving during wartime due to low enrollment, he returned again from 1920-1925. During his final year at WSC, he was acting head of the Department of Mines and Geology. Born and raised on the campuses of Stanford University, he received his Bachelors (1913), Masters (1915), and Ph.D. (1929) there. After leaving WSC to work in the oil industry in Indonesia for a few years, he returned to Stanford. After finishing his Ph.D., he was faculty at Stanford until he was appointed state geologist for California and head of the state Division of Mines and Geology in 1947, a position he held until his retirement in 1958.
The collection consists of lantern slides primarily tied to geology in the Pacific Northwest, most created in the 1910s to 1930s. They include both commercial lantern slides and personally created lantern slides; the majority of the latter, where dated, seem to be from 1921 and from 1928, and bear the initials O.P.J. This was almost certainly Olaf Pitt Jenkins, a professor of Economic Geology in what was then known as Washington State College’s School of Mines and Geology.
Sources of commercial lantern slides include Asahel Curtis; Seattle; Arthur M. Prentiss, Portland (primarily in the Columbia River series); Keystone View Co., Meadville, PA; and others. Only between 5 and 15 percent of the images were commercially produced.
The slides were likely created and organized either for instruction or for personal research. They include series on northwest rivers and gorges; waterfalls; the Columbia River; lakes; mountains; the Palouse region, scablands, and basalt; and what appears to be a hiking trip (or trips) in the North Cascades.
The majority of the images are undated, but almost all are labeled.
The lantern slides are retained in their original order, as each sequence of numbers appears to relate to a subject of some sort. Any information on what that subject actually was is lost to history, and so in describing these series we are hypothesizing on and approximating the original subjects. The series are not complete, as not all materials were retained in the archives – materials both commercially produced and not pertaining to the northwest were not retained.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Original unpublished Olaf Pitt Jenkins materials either remain within the copyright of his heirs until 70 years after his 1983 death, or if created in the course of his employment, then in copyright of that employer until 120 years after their date of creation. Commercially published materials moved into the public domain 95 years after their date of original publication; as these were most likely all obtained before Olaf Pitt Jenkins left WSC is 1925, the commercial images all are probably now in public domain, but, it remains the responsibility of the user to verify that.
[Item description]
Olaf Pitt Jenkins Geology Lantern Slides, 1910s-1928 (PC 190)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Peter Larson of the WSU department of Geology donated this collection to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections on January 9, 2020, where they were retained as UPC 2020-01. The materials had been in storage in his department for decades before that.
This collection was processed by University Archivist Mark O’English processed this collection in September of 2020.
During processing, the decision was made to retain only lantern slides that were either original (e.g. non-commercial) or else strongly tied to the Pacific Northwest. The remaining slides, probably about 500 in number, were returned to the donor.
The Manuscripts division at Stanford University holds a small (.5 linear feet) collection of Olaf Pitt Jenkins Papers, 1929-1973 (bulk 1946-1958) as collection M0531.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Original Number Range: 129
Original Number Range: 131
Original Number Range: 500
Original Number Range: 800
Original Number Range: 902
Original Number Range: 1006
Original Number Range: 1015 - 1046
Original Number Range: 1106 - 1133
Original Number Range: 1700 - 1742
Original Number Range: 2200 - 2224
Original Number Range: 2803 - 2807
Original Number Range: 3006 - 3071
Original Number Range: 3077 - 3080
Original Number Range: 3083 - 3118
Original Number Range: 3132 - 3164
Original Number Range: 3400 - 3442
Original Number Range: 3501 - 3541
Original Number Range: 3602 - 3621
Original Number Range: 3900 - 3959
Original Number Range: 4007 - 4032