This collection is open for research.
Donated by Isabel Haynes and the Haynes Foundation in 1977.
This collection is arranged in five series by function. Within each series ledgers are grouped by record type and arranged chronologically. Most of the books are unlabeled and therefore cannot be precisely identified. Headings should be considered as rough approximations only based on what seems to be the location of the business and the purpose of the record. For example, little practical distinction may exist between cash books, daybooks, and orders. Present arrangement is rough, following the general shelving divisions made soon after the library's accession of the collection in 1978 (which may have been instituted before then).
Due to record keeping practice, little distinction was made between studio business in Dakota and Minnesota, and in Yellowstone Park. An attempt has been made to distinguish between the records from the various business locations, but users should examine all relevant material from a period throughout the collection when conducting research.
Volumes dating before 1916 known or strongly suspected to be from business in the Yellowstone studio or various hotel stands are followed by an asterisk. Locations of the originating studio or stand are noted where they are known.
Series 1 General Business Records
Series 2 Monies In
Series 3 Monies Out
Series 4 Employee Records
Series 5 Inventory and Property
The Haynes Studio and Haynes Picture Shop were photography businesses owned and operated by Frank Jay Haynes in Moorhead, MN, Fargo, ND, Saint Paul, MN, and Yellowstone National Park. F. Jay Haynes established his first photography studio in Moorhead, MN in 1876. A chance meeting with the Northern Pacific Rail Road's (NPRR) branch superintendent resulted in a commission to photograph the line and in 1877 Haynes became the railroad's official photographer. He moved his studio across the Red River to Fargo, N.D., in 1879 to continue his work at the NPRR's eastern terminus.
Haynes used his Fargo studio as the central business address and operation for printing and marketing his photographs. In 1881, Haynes toured Yellowstone National Park on the NPRR and recognized that the park provided possibilities for a new photography business, especially as the NPRR rails were quickly approaching the northern entrance. He received a federal license to establish a studio in the park in 1884 and constructed a studio at Mammoth Hot Springs, the National Park Studio, which opened in the 1885 season.
From the Mammoth Hot Springs studio Haynes travelled the park taking exposures of scenery and tourist parties. The studio maintained a stocked showroom from which tourists could select samples and order views (black and white or hand tinted with watercolors), which were printed and mailed from Fargo. Haynes also established "stands" in the hotels at Mammoth (besides the studio), at Canyon, Norris, Lake, and in 1897 the Log Cabin Studio in Upper Geyser Basin. Eventually his printed souvenirs were sold by the several camping companies that competed with the hotels. In 1885, Haynes created the Haynes Palace Studio Car, a mobile studio in a converted Pullman car that travelled the NPRR lines. The studio car operated twenty years between 1885 and 1904, taking portraits for the small towns scattered across the northern tier of states between the Great Lakes and Puget Sound.
Haynes closed the Fargo studio in 1889 to open a larger studio in Saint Paul, MN. The new studio not only centralized the supply for his Yellowstone business and railroad orders, but it also operated an active portrait studio with itinerant salesmen who traveled with sample cases of his photographs and marketed his work. Haynes remained in Saint Paul throughout the rest of his life.
In addition to his photography business, F. Jay Haynes also owned several transportation companies within Yellowstone. He established the Monida & Yellowstone Stage Company in 1898, a tourist transportation business operating in Yellowstone through the west entrance. In 1915 he asked the Secretary of the Interior to transfer his photographic concession to his son Jack Ellis Haynes and concentrated his effort on the Yellowstone-Western Stage Company, successor to the Monida & Yellowstone Stage Company. At the close of the 1916 season Stephen Mather, the head of the National Parks Service, ordered a redistribution of park concessions to create regulated monopolies of specific industries. As a result of this agreement, F. Jay Haynes retired from in-park business and divested himself of his assets in Yellowstone. He closed the stage company and Jack bought his father's photographic concession in Yellowstone and the business in Saint Paul.
Jack Haynes maintained the studio in Saint Paul and the accounts until moving to Bozeman, MT, in 1945. He initially conducted business under the name of J.E. Haynes, but in 1921 Haynes incorporated the Haynes Picture Shops to do business in the park. As Yellowstone business expanded Jack dropped the Saint Paul photography studio moving the operations to Bozeman. Jack remained at the helm of the Haynes business until his death in 1962. The business was sold to Hamilton Store in 1968.
F. Jay Haynes maintained the photography business accounts records until his retirement in 1916. When Jack E. Haynes succeeded his father in the photography business, he continued the ledgers entries and opened a new set of books. The ledgers remained in possession of Jack E. Haynes during his ownership and operation of the studios.
Jack Haynes also kept ledgers (or at least, bound tabulations) for his expanding business in Yellowstone though few survive. Anecdotal evidence gleaned during processing indicates that most of the volumes relating to Jack Haynes's business operations were destroyed by his widow Isabel Haynes shortly before the gift of the collection was made to the Montana State University Libraries in 1978. A few ledgers that missed destruction surfaced in the Isabel Haynes auction in 1993. Book 170A and boxes 1-2 were purchased through a private party from lots in the Isabel Haynes estate auction.
During the initial accessioning of the Haynes Family Collection in 1978, the collection was separated into eight collections to reflect the papers of individual members of the Haynes family and records of the companies they operated. The collections were each processed separately in the 1990s. Printed and published items such as books, maps, and pamphlets from the Haynes library have been cataloged individually within the MSU Special Collections library.
This collection was processed in 1995, and additional edits were made 2015 August 31.
Additional manuscripts and records relating to members of the Haynes family and Haynes family businesses have been separated into the following collections at Montana State University: F. Jay Haynes papers, 1870-1922 (1500), Yellowstone-Western Stage Company records, 1898-1916 (1502), Lily Snyder Jay Haynes papers, 1876-1928 (1503), Jack E. Haynes papers and Haynes Inc. records Haynes papers, 1915-1965 (1504), Isabel Haynes papers, 1866-1992 (1505), Lida Haynes papers, 1910-1952 (1506), and Haynes Family Photographs, 1866-1969 (1507).
The Montana Historical Society also holds a portion of photographs and records from the Haynes photography business: Frank Jay Haynes papers, 1876-1962 (MC 146) and F. Jay Haynes Architectural Drawings collection, circa 1890-1930 (MC 86). 24,000 photographs from the Haynes Foundation Collection are cataloged individually in MSH Photograph Collection.
The Haynes Studio and Haynes Picture Shops records contain bound financial, stock, order, invoice ledgers from photography businesses owned by F. Jay Haynes and his son and successor Jack E. Haynes. The bound ledgers served as the primary accounting and records keeping medium for the Haynes photography businesses. They will be of particular significance to researchers interested in financial operations of the Haynes family businesses or the history of business in the first half of the twentieth century.
Ledgers in this collection represent most of the official records kept by F. Jay Haynes for the financial tracking of his studio photography businesses in Fargo, ND, and Saint Paul, MN, and of his photographic concession business in Yellowstone National Park. They record a wide variety of information relative to business operations.
Haynes conducted sales in his photography businesses in two fashions: stock sales and orders. Sales made from stock on hand, such as guidebooks and postcards, were sequentially recorded in a notebook, probably at the time of sale. The information was transferred to a ledger, which served as a master record of business activity, at a later time. Virtually no orders for large-format photographs or studio portraits were filled from stock. Patrons typically selected samples and received the order by mailed after the items were printed by the studio in Fargo or Saint Paul. The Yellowstone business was handled identically. Orders were forwarded east by regular mail, then produced and mailed as time allowed. Consequently, researchers should look at both sets of notebook records and ledgers for overlapping business dealings as both the ledgers and notebooks may not survive for each activity.
Expenses were handled similarly but with some differences. The actual invoices themselves were pasted into large ledgers. A master invoice-payment register (Daybook) was kept that listed the systematic payment of Haynes's supply and service bills (most of these are for the Saint Paul studio only) as they came due.
A small amount of business correspondence includes general inquiries about Yellowstone National Park tourism and travel through park with the Monida & Yellowstone Stage Company.
General business records consist of outgoing correspondence for several of the businesses owned by F. Jay Haynes, Palace Studio Car daily reports, records of goods shipped to Yellowstone National Park, and a notebook of collected birth and death notices. Outgoing correspondence comprises the bulk of this series and features letterpress copies of correspondence sent from the Fargo and St. Paul studios regarding supply orders, customer inquiries and business arrangements. Correspondence also includes a few letters from the Haynes Palace Studio Car's operation and the organization of tourist parties in the park. One volume of correspondence features general inquiries about Yellowstone via the Monida & Yellowstone Stage Company.
This series also contains additional account books documenting daily reports of the Haynes Palace Studio Car, 1898-1899; goods shipped to Yellowstone National Park, May 1894; a notebook containing clippings of birth and death announcements from unidentified circulars, 1901-1902. The birth and death notice records appear to be related to Haynes's photography business and include annotations and names that are crossed out.
Monies in contains an array of bound financial records documenting streams of revenue for the businesses owned by F. Jay Haynes. Ledgers are dated 1882-1915 and contain general finance record for his Fargo and St. Paul studios. Accounts for his Yellowstone National Park businesses are not featured in these ledgers.
Cash Sales books contain a record of items and prices from daily sales made in the Fargo and St. Paul studios. These books were not used as a permanent record, and entries (particularly orders) appear to have been transferred into daybooks or ledgers for official recordkeeping. Cash sales books from Haynes's Fargo location (1879-1889) also contain records of the sheet music, frames, artwork, and musical instruments that he sold for several years, in addition to his views and studio portraits. After the studio moved to St. Paul in 1889, entries in the cash sales book reflect the shift to more directly to selling studio portraits and mail-order views.
Day books contain records of mail order income and payments made on invoiced supplies through the St. Paul studio, including wholesales to the Yellowstone National Park studio, Haynes Studio Palace Car, and for travelling sample cases. The day books exclude in-store cash sales totals. Entries were made from invoices and thereafter transferred to the accounts in ledgers. Other bound volumes recording incoming funds include cash book documenting the funds on hand from cash sale; receipt stubs; remittance receipt stubs; wholesale shipment receipts that list purchaser, merchandise and quantity, price for payments made to the Haynes business locations in Yellowstone; orders, which were often recorded in the back of cash sales notebooks; Haynes Amateur Department receipts containing stub books from tourist finishing orders; Haynes studio journals showing expenses and income by account; Haynes Picture Studio journals showing expenses and income; and daily financial reports that contain sheets that were forwarded to the general office to record daily sales totals.
Accounting books are grouped by record type and arranged chronologically within these groupings. Haynes organized his ledgers by account and maintained his cash daybooks and cash sales notebooks in chronological order. Haynes Amateur Department receipts and daily financial reports are both organized by location.
Monies out consist of ledgers tracking expenses of the Haynes businesses between 1878 and 1932. The bulk of these expense records are comprised of invoices and shipment registrations. Invoice ledgers include bills for paper stock, negative stock, mats and frames, postcard and other printing and engraving, souvenirs, boxes, and envelopes. Other small ledgers include supply order receipt stubs from April 1889, petty expenses 1894-1895, and shipment receipts of goods within Yellowstone from 1892.
Shipments are arranged by shipper.
Invoices correspond to entries made in Daybooks for a chronological record of payment. Invoice numbers are penciled-in and often circled and typically correspond to the page number of the Daybook entry for that year.
Arranged numerically by negative number.
Arranged alphabetically by sitter's surname
Inventory and property records contain price lists for inquirers 1883-1899, cash account ledgers and inventory lists for the Haynes Yellowstone National Park businesses 1901-1907, annual Yellowstone Park stock-sales summaries 1912-1920, and select sample postcard books for postcards produced and sold by the Haynes company.
Stock-sales summaries are arranged by souvenir type and recorded under item sold.