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Vol. 26:4 ISSN 0160-8460 December 1998
Alaska in Denver: The Bailey Photographic Collection
by Liz Clancy
In 1997, the Denver Museum of Natural History (DMNH) received a grant from the NHPRC to preserve an important collection of historical ethnographic and wildlife photographs from Alaska, dating from the early 1920s.
Bailey and Hendee "at home," Wainright, Alaska, 1921-1922. Photograph by A. M. Bailey, courtesy of the Denver Museum of Natural History Photo Archives.
Alfred Marshall Bailey began working in southeast Alaska for the U.S. Biological Survey in 1919. In 1921, the DMNH hired Bailey to collect birds and mammals far north of the Arctic Circle. Bailey and his associate Russell W. Hendee spent 16 months in the Arctic collecting specimens for study and exhibit. No other researchers or collectors had ever spent such a prolonged period of time in the Arctic. Together they took over 1,500 black-and-white photographs throughout southeastern Alaska, the Bering Strait region (including Siberia), and along the entire North Shore from Cape Prince of Wales to the Canadian boundary.
The collection is rare in its size, scope, and depth. It not only documents the environment and wildlife, but also the people, their settlements, and cultural and social activities of Alaska. Bailey produced about 600 high-quality photographs of the people with whom he visited and worked.
Accompanying the photographs of the entire period are field notes by Bailey. Each image and its context is documented in some way, often in detail. In addition, the complete body of work from this Alaskan expedition includes publications, exhibits, and correspondence.
This extraordinary collection was selected for this preservation project because it is well organized, identified, documented, and published. Photographically, the images are beautifully composed, are in sharp focus, and have been well exposed. As American history, this collection is an important contribution to the chronicle of the time and region, its wildlife and native populations. These photographs document a people and a way of life on the brink of change, just prior to the modern era. We can see a way of life that changed quickly and completely when the radio made possible rapid communication and the airplane became a common means of transportation across such vast distances. Bailey's keen observations led to an outstanding archive of cultural information. His unique visual and documentary record is essential as it comes at a time when the traditional economies and belief system were beginning to change to heavy reliance on objects and behaviors brought about by schools, tourists, the military, and oil field developers.
Natives dragging a bearded seal, Bering Strait, Alaska, May 1922. Photograph by A. M. Bailey, courtesy of the Denver Museum of Natural History Photo Archives.
Alfred Bailey was a leading early photographer. The photographic documentation of many of the birds and mammals he encountered adds value and credibility to his written records. The quality of those images provides indisputable verification for many of the species he noted. These may well be the first (they certainly rank among the earliest) photographs taken of the pristine habitat and arctic wildlife found in the region.
As the collection has become more well known, there has been a steady increase in demand for its use. Every year the Museum's Photo Archives receives requests from Museum staff, outside scholars, researchers, and major publishers from around the world to research, exhibit, and/or publish these images in popular or scholarly publications and video productions. In recent years, these photographs have been used extensively in Alaskan Eskimo programs, posters, calendars, oral histories, and brochures. Copies of many of these photographs have been obtained by the North Slope Borough School District (Barrow, AK) for historical and educational programs. This demand made it imperative that a stable and more durable product be used to provide access, while preserving the original images. An added, and very important, benefit resulting from the successful grant application has been the opportunity to inform and educate administrators and managers within the Museum about the inherent problems with cellulose nitrate film, the significance of the photographic collections as a whole, their importance to the institution, and the amount of staff dedication and protracted commitment of time and money needed to insure their preservation.
Prior to this grant-funded project, the Museum had no system or routine plan in place for the duplication of the nitrate negative collection, and no budget was provided. The grant enabled us to take our first major step in a program of addressing this serious preservation problem. Long-range plans now call for a regular routine of duplicating a portion of significant nitrate negatives each year. Costs will be paid out of the regular operating budget. The original negatives can then be permanently removed to an on-site freezer in another part of the building, and the copy negative will become the use copy, bringing the collections to an optimum level of management and storage.
Flossie with camera, Wainwright, Alaska, 1921. Photograph by A. M. Bailey, courtesy of the Denver Museum of Natural History Photo Archives.
(Liz Clancy is the photo archivist of the Denver Museum of Natural History.)
