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Abby Williams Hill papers, 1850-1985

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Hill, Abby Williams
Title
Abby Williams Hill papers
Dates
1850-1985 (inclusive)
1890-1943 (bulk)
Quantity
22.4 linear feet, (39 boxes)
Collection Number
Mss.011
Summary
Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943) was a landscape artist best known for her oil paintings created en plein air, or outdoors, depicting the scenery of the American West. Her work was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893), St. Louis World's Fair (1904), the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland (1905), the Jamestown Tercentennial (1907), and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle (1909). The Abby Williams Hill papers include 39 boxes of correspondence, journals, sketchbooks, news clippings, printed material, ephemera, photographs, and artifacts documenting the life of Hill and her family. The University of Puget Sound also holds separately the Abby Williams Hill Memorial Collection, which contains approximately 150 oil paintings and ink drawings created by Abby Williams Hill between 1886 and 1934.
Repository
University of Puget Sound, Archives & Special Collections

Collins Memorial Library
1500 N. Warner St.
CMB1021
Tacoma, WA
98416-1021
Telephone: 2538792669
archives@pugetsound.edu
Access Restrictions

Collection is open to researchers by appointment.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943) was a landscape artist best known for her oil paintings created en plein air depicting the scenery of the American West. Her work was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893), St. Louis World's Fair (1904), the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland (1905), the Jamestown Tercentennial (1907), and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle (1909).

Abby Rhoda Williams was born on September 25, 1861, to Henry Warner Williams and Harriet Porter Hubbard in Grinnell, Iowa. Hill showed an early aptitude for art and was taught by her aunt, Ruth Hubbard, a botanical watercolorist. Hill also studied painting at the Chicago Art Institute under H.F. Spread. In 1884, she moved to Berthier-en-Haut, Quebec, where she taught painting and drawing at a school for girls. In 1887, Hill moved to New York City to study with American painter William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League. She married Dr. Frank Hill of Marietta, Ohio, in Brooklyn, New York, on December 22, 1888. In 1889, the couple moved to Tacoma, Washington. Soon after, Hill gave birth to a son, Romayne, her only biological child. The Hill's would later adopt three daughters, Ione, and siblings Ina and Eulalie DeRosier.

The Pacific Northwest offered Hill a plenitude of scenes for her continued artistic creation. She joined a 26-day camping trip to Mount Rainier in July 1895, followed immediately by a 12-day expedition to the Hood Canal. These trips contributed to Hill's interest in hiking, camping, and painting en plein air, and led to a brief career as a professional landscape painter for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railways.

Between 1903 and 1906, Hill accepted four commissions from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railways to paint scenery along their rail lines. This included views of the North Cascades and Mount Rainier in Washington and Yellowstone National Park, among other locations. The commissions allowed for extended stays in the wilderness, often in the company of her four children. Hill's paintings for the railroads were used in promotional materials and exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair (1904), the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland (1905), the Jamestown Tercentennial (1907), and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle (1909).

In addition to her work as an artist, Hill was the founder and first president of the Washington State chapter of the Congress of Mothers, now known as the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). She advocated for the importance of early childhood education and for equal education for immigrants and African Americans. Hill was also interested in Native American life and culture and visited many different reservations in the early 1900s, including a five-week stay on the Flathead Reservation in Montana with her children in 1905.

In the 1910s, Frank Hill suffered from a period of severe mental illness. The family relocated from Tacoma, Washington, to Laguna Beach, California, in hopes that the warmer climate would help him recover. There, Hill became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association and painted scenery in the Laguna Mountains and along the Pacific Ocean.

In the 1920s, the family purchased their first automobile and traveled extensively around the western United States and Canada. During this time, Hill became concerned with the threat that increased tourism and development posed to the natural environment. In response, Hill created a series of paintings of the national parks in the American West during the late 1920s and early 1930s, which she considered her legacy to future generations. She also embarked on a letter writing campaign to create a system of national sanitariums for tuberculosis patients.

Abby Williams Hill died on May 14, 1943 in San Diego, California.

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Content Description

The Abby Williams Hill papers include 39 boxes of materials, the majority of which date from 1890 to 1943. The papers are arranged in eleven distinct series: Correspondence, Journals, Sketchbooks and Drawings, News Clippings, Printed Material, Ephemera, Biographical Information, Photographs, Artifacts, the Bonnie Smolenski Collection on Abby Williams Hill, and the Tom Kress Collection on Abby Williams Hill. The last two series (Smolenski and Kress) include materials donated in 2014 by persons unrelated to the Hill family.

These papers document the life of Abby Williams Hill and her family, Hill's artistic career including her commissions for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railways, her travels across the United States and Europe, her relationship with her husband and four children, and her passion for social causes. Significant topics represented in these records include Tacoma and Washington State history; hiking and camp life in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and California; Native American tribes in Montana and Washington, particularly the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation; the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama; the National Park Service; preservation and conservation of federal lands; early childhood education; the Congress of Mothers; and tuberculosis.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

[Name of document, date.] Abby Williams Hill Collection, Mss.011. University of Puget Sound Archives & Special Collections. Tacoma, Washington.

Restrictions on Use

Property rights reside with the University of Puget Sound. For information about permission to reproduce or publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

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Administrative Information

Related Materials

Some of the materials in the Abby Williams Hill papers have been digitized and are available to researchers online. In 2019, nine of Hill's journals focusing on her travels throughout the United States between 1895 and 1906 were digitized and transcribed. These journals can be accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/site/pugetsound/abby-williams-hill-journals/?so=item_title_str_asc.

A selection of the photographs have also been digitized and can be accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/site/pugetsound/abby-williams-hill-photos/?so=item_title_str_asc&searchkey=1760640284678&pagemark=eyJwYWdlIjoyLCJzdGFydCI6MjUsInRvdGFsIjo2OH0%253D.

Images of Hill's artwork can be accessed at this site: https://www.jstor.org/site/pugetsound/abby-williams-hill-artwork/?so=item_title_str_asc&searchkey=1760640305302.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Laura Edgar
2014, revised 2022.

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

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