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Yosemite History: Carleton E. Watkins, photographer

Carleton Watkins leaving his studio during the fire following the San Francisco earthquake, April 1906 (Bancroft Library)

C. E. Watkins (Carleton Emmons Watkins), 1829-1916

"Carleton E. Watkins was one of California’s early commercial photographers. In the 1860s, he created some of the first and most important photographs of the Yosemite region. "In both stereoscopic and mammoth-plate formats, Carleton E. Watkins makes the first important photographic record of Yosemite, a site he photographed repeatedly in the coming decades; Watkins’s images circulate widely, especially in stereoscopic form, and do much to publicize Yosemite throughout the nation." --From "The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920"

• Early Watkins Yosemite landscape photographs:
  • Thumbnails of of Early Watkins Yosemite landscape photographs
  • List of Early Watkins Yosemite landscape photographs
• Josiah D. Whitney’s The Yosemite Book (1869) included 24 photographs by Watkins of Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove. These photographs were hand-printed and tipped-in the book. Only 250 copies of the first edition were printed (the only edition with photographs).
  • Watkins photographs in The Yosemite Book
• Related Links
  • “Carleton E. Watkins, Pioneer Photographer of the Pacific Coast,” Yosemite Nature Notes 32(4):32-37 (April 1953) by Ralph H. Anderson [PDF]
  • Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception. Includes a timeline. (National Gallery of Art)
  • Carleton E. Watkins short biography and museum photographs (Getty Museum)
  • Carleton E. Watkins Photographs of American Scenery (National Library of Wales)
  • Stereoviews of Carleton Watkins hundreds of stereo photographs
  • Watkins photographs in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (6 photographs)
  • Book: Carleton Watkins (In Focus) by Carleton E. Watkins, J. Paul Getty Museum

Credits: The above collection of early Watkins Yosemite landscape photographs is from the Library of Congress Exhibit "The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920" as part of its American Memory Project. The production of this collection was supported by a generous gift from Laurance S. and Mary French Rockefeller.

Copyright © 1997-2007 Dan Anderson. All rights reserved.
Last updated 6 July 2011.

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/watkins/