Photographs

Mark O’English
509.335.2739
markoe@wsu.edu
To send a request
 

About our photograph collections

We have almost half a million images in our historical photograph collections, including photographic prints, slides, and negatives.

We have photographs from the late 1800s to the present that offer a wealth of visual documentation for the study of human and material culture on the WSU campus, the city of Pullman, the Palouse region and the Inland Northwest, and of the Pacific Northwest.

Highlights

The William Barkhuff Collection 1892-1921 includes some of the earliest images of WSU. Barkhuff enrolled at WSU on opening day in 1892.

The Charles R. Pratsch Collection documents the early history of the Washington towns of Aberdeen, Hoquiam, and Grays Harbor. It also includes 64 portraits of citizens of the Quinault Indian Nation. This collection helps trace the effects of erosion and logging along the Pacific Coast.

The McWhorter Collection documents the history of the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) Tribe and the Yakama Nation. Lucullus V. McWhorter took portraits and images of battle grounds to illustrate books and pamphlets concerning the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Avery Collection includes photo negatives taken between 1901 and 1916 when Frank Fuller Avery worked for the Colville Indian Agency. The images record agency personnel, agency headquarters, and farmers and schoolchildren from the Colville Tribes.

hiraharag.jpgThe George and Frank C. Hirahara Collection includes over 2000 images from the Japanese American incarceration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming from January 1943 to November 1945. It is considered the largest privately created collection of photos depicting life in Japanese American incarceration camps. George Hirahara and his son Frank captured images of life at the incarceration camp and special family milestones, including engagement celebrations, weddings, and family portraits.

The Frank S. Matsura Collection contains 1800 photographs depicting life in Okanogan County, including work and entertainment scenes. Frank S. Matsura arrived in the United States from Japan in 1905, eventually settling in Okanogan, Washington. He opened a photography studio, which he managed until his death from tuberculosis in 1913 at the age of 32.

The Photographs of Edward R. Murrow, 1909-1964, includes over 100 photographs spanning Murrow’s life, from boyhood to college, and through his career with CBS.

Collection Guides

Collection Guides (also called Finding aids) is the generic term for various guides, inventories, registers, lists and indexes that describe items or the parts within individual manuscript/photograph collections. These Collection Guides provide an overview of our photographic collections in varying degrees of descriptive detail. The following list is dynamic and will be extended systematically over time. A-G H-L M-P R-Y

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Collection Guides Organized by Subject

For user convenience, the following list of selected digitized collection guides has been arranged according to broad subject categories. This list will be expanded over time, as new archival finding aids are digitized and as new photographic collections are processed. Users should consult these guides for more detailed descriptions of collection contents.

Agriculture

Cities and Towns

Pullman, Washington

Environment

Native Americans

Railroads

Washington State University, WSU Faculty and Graduates

Washington Territory 1853-1889