Anders B. Wilse emigrated from Norway to the United States in the 1880s, and arrived in Seattle in 1890. Wilse's earliest Pacific Northwest photos document the construction of the Great Northern rail line across the Cascades, made when he was employed by Great Northern in 1892-93. In 1897, Wilse began his career as a scenic photographer and bought an established photography business, renaming it the Seattle Photographic Company. In 1900, Wilse returned to Norway and the business remained in the hands of his assistants until it closed in 1913.
The collection consists of one photograph album with black canvas-covered cardboard covers and 53 black and white photographs mounted on gray cardboard pages. The inside front and back covers are stamped "Seattle Photographic Co." Each photograph is captioned with an identifying number; the album was possibly a sample book shown to prospective customers. The vast majority of the photographs are signed "Wilse," with a few signed "Seattle Photographic Co." The bulk of the photographs were taken in Seattle, with a few elsewhere in Washington State. Subjects include buildings such as Denny Hall and King County Courthouse, Pioneer Square, Seattle parks and bike paths, downtown street views, the Seattle waterfront and ships, aerial views, the Great Northern rail line, scenic views in Seattle and Washington, and portraits of Indigenous people.
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.
The collection is open to the public by appointment.
Seattle Photographic Company photograph album, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle
Gift of William Green, received in February 2026.
MOHAI holds two other collections of photographs by Anders B. Wilse: Anders Beer Wilse Photographs, Lib1988.33; Anders Beer Wilse Philippine American War Photo Album, 1980.6967.
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.