Featured Antique Alaskana Photographs

Hello, it is my pleasure to share these with you. If you have any clues about identification or history of these please share. Enjoy.

One of my Larrs and Duclos Dawson ladies…


Another Larrs and Duclos Dawson gal.


1932 McGee Airways Stinson on skis at Lake Hood in Anchorage. First Alaska Airlines plane.


Three gentleman with a mountain of horns and a Stinson in the background.


A couple old hotels. I like the dog on the porch of the Pacific Hotel.


The gentleman of Star Air Service which acquired McGee Airways and later became Alaska Airlines.


This appears to be Seward during the return of WWI soldiers. I cannot confirm that though.


Not a photo, but this is a newspaper from Cordova, Alaska announcing the end of WWI, essentially.



Thanks for looking!

 

Looks like a nice collection!

I understand from a different post that you had these all framed? Is that correct? Normally it's better for me to look at scans rather than photos... but, won't ask you to take them out of the frames in order to do that. And you might not even have some of them with you... I think you said some are with your mother?

I'm assuming these are all printed on paper, but are any of them mounted on cards? What are the sizes?

Fig

 

These are all printed on paper. My mother loved the performers so much I let her hang them at her house. She had them reframed to fit the decor of her home. I don't have those reframed shots handy. The other frames were either original or done by the previous owner, which would have been at least 40 years ago.

Photography is not a strength of mine and especially not photographing photos. When I photograph some more of them not shown here, maybe I'll take some out of the frame. What a pain in the rump, though.

 

No need to take them out... it just was my preference. The age might be easier to identify if they were out of the frames. Whether they were later prints or not, I mean. Obviously the original images were old photos.

Even out of the frames, if they are on paper it could be rather difficult to identify the age from looking at them online. And it may not matter, ultimately.

Thanks for sharing these!

 

Some things collected with some of these photos indicate them being from near the time that photos were taken, like the newspaper. But, as always, I could be very wrong.

I'm never really interested in monetary value anyhow. I consider myself a hobby historian and simply enjoy the ability to time travel vicariously through these items. That said if anyone made any generous offers I wouldn't necessarily ignore them. It is just that the value isn't really a concern of mine so much as the enjoyment.

 

Oh, I'm not too interested in the value, either. I just like the history of photography, and also finding some information about the images themselves. I don't sell things...

 

Great! Then we are on the same photo paper, so to speak. I am definitely not rich and live a very modest lifestyle, but I believe it is God's path. There is also something to be said for passing things like this down so they don't get lost in time.

 

I would say the Dawson performers could be considered gold rush. Also, the hotel photos were likely from gold rush towns.

Actually, I do know someone who has photos of people wading through muck with carts and gear. They aren't actually doing any mining activity, but on their way to it.

Next time I see her I'll see if I can snag a few photos.

 

Well, as far as authenticity, let's just say nobody has time to fake junk like this up here. I was privy to dibs on a lot items with some other folks during a terrible remodel on a property with a lot of history. A complete sanitation of the worst kind. Most of the things shown here were rescued from this collection. I was actually the last person to look through it all and have my way. I filled my vehicle absolutely. Sadly, when I came back for more it had all been put in the dumpster. I salvaged what I could and planned to bring a truck back. The next day, the dumpster was off to the landfill.

This is a long story. If any of this brings me retirement soon, I'll write the whole thing out for you. Because I understand how valuable some of these things could be, they may bring animosity among some I know, although I was very generous and shared a lot, too. I just gave several 100ish year old clocks away that I acquired in an estate auction lot recently just to bring joy to some I know who'd like them.

I am a person of strong faith and I do believe in destiny.

Speaking to the entirety of my collection, it has been gathered over my life from all kinds of places. It just so happens that some of the highlights I'm showing off came from one rich honey hole.

 

The original collector(s) is not with us anymore. In fact, the property changed hands several times since his passing, along with the collection. Some things were pulled out of an attic and several other vole infested storage places. Luckily, there is a fairly dry climate here because these things may have gotten wet once or twice.

At this property, just over 70 years ago, Kemit Roosevelt shot himself. The story wasn't reported until much time after his death and, to this day, claims it occurred on Fort Richardson. He actually did it in a brothel and the family couldn't let that be known.

If you knew the people I've met on this property you could only dream of who may have touched this wheel. I love that the metal is so soft. If you look closely, every wedding ring, bracelet, or cufflink that clanged against it while spinning it left a tiny dent. Thousands and thousands of them. That is patina. I love it.

 

What an interesting collection and how you came to collect it.
As Skeez said, writing the provenance and what you know of certain items could be very important later to a historical society or local museum.

As for your two ladies from Larrs and Duclos Dawson (a Photo studio? or one of the Bordellos? sorry I didn't google)

The photos appear to be of the same woman. Note the shape of the face, the eyebrows, length of nose and the tilt of the head.

 

Larrs and Duclos were fairly famous early photographers that had a few studios during the Yukon Gold Rush in Alaska and in Dawson, a gold rush town. They produced prints like this for prospectors and others as keepsakes to take home. I don't know if that was the intention with these, but a lot of their work could be thought of as souvenir photos.

The aircraft were done by Hewitt's Photo Shop which were probably the most popular in Alaska a few decades after the Larrs and Duclos days.

I hadn't considered that they were the same lady. I can see that now. I've always called her Lady Luck, my incarnation of the Goddess Fortuna and her wheel of fortune. She doesn't resemble Klondike Kate, but maybe there is an answer somewhere. Thanks so much for the enlightenment. They look so different! Great costume work!

 

Looks like her name might be Vivian.

I found this Larss and Duclos photo, also in Dawson.
http://www.eed.state.ak.us/temp_lam_pages/library/gold/simpledetail.cfm?DetailID=945

 

I'll put them all together here…

State owned photo.


My two.





If it is a ringer I'm going to print the Alaska State photo out to make a nice stocking stuffer for mom. She will be happy to be enlightened on this.

Sorry for the quality of my photos. Obviously Alaska has someone who knows how to scan a photo.

I found that photo here if anyone wants to look through old Alaska photos for my wheel… hahaha.
http://education.alaska.gov/temp_la...CID=James Wickersham Photographs, 1882-1930s#

 

You aren't going to believe this one… Look what I found on a Canadian photo site…
Same costume, maybe same shoot, but laying on a bearskin! Awesome. My hair is standing up.

At least this one, it says possibly, her name is Fabruda Manzar. What a hot name.



From this site.
http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine/Online-Extension/Articles/Women-of-the-Klondike.aspx

 

Bammm
https://books.google.com/books?id=p-0r30o8x-MC&pg=PA272&lpg=PA272&dq=fabruda manzar&source=bl&ots=SMST_JVEWR&sig=bjaT2ObKt6O5SiJEQcvIQtwzIk4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oD2MVLmMM83SoAT2goGQCA&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=fabruda manzar&f=false


There she is… "Little Egypt" of the Chicago World's Fair in Dawson. Simply amazing feeling to find out an old antique of yours is in a book. Might be a first for me….

 

Known by her stage name of “Little Egypt”, Fahruda Manzar Spyropoulos born in Syria in 1871 became famous for her belly dancing at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. She apparently danced in Skagway and went to the Klondike. Much later, in 1933 she danced in the Chicago World of Progress Fair and then drifted into obscurity.

In 1898 Mark Twain had a near fatal heart attack watching Farida go through her paces.[2]

YA National Museum Of Canada Collection #816; Wikipedia




She almost killed Twain!


Sorry guys, I was posting through the process of enlightenment on this. It is kind of cool that my discovery got documented here. I love history, I love this stuff.