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Guide to the Joseph E. Stimson Photograph Collection

 Collection
Identifier: C-1615

Scope and Content

The J.E. Stimson Collection contains the landscape photographs taken by Stimson during his career as a professional photographer. Many of the photographs were created under contract with the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) to promote tourism along the UPRR line in Wyoming. Many of his photographs document the growth of Wyoming towns using highly detailed images of downtown streets and panoramic views overlooking town.

A large portion of the collection contains photographs of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the surrounding area. Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo events and street scenes are featured prominently in the collection.

The collection also includes many images of agricultural production in Wyoming, especially dry farming and ranching. The wonders of Yellowstone National Park were documented by Stimson on at least two occasions, probably for use by the UPRR in their promotional material.

Two albums of Stimson’s work also accompanied the negatives, one of black and white images and the other including examples of his hand-tinting.

Stimson took several trips both east and west along the UPRR’s line. As a result, the collection also contains images of cities, towns, and locations in California, Nevada, Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas.

The collection does not include many examples of Stimson’s portraiture as the shelves holding these negatives collapsed before the collection was acquired, shattering the negatives. Scattered examples of these prints can, however, be found throughout the Wyoming State Archives’ holdings and in other archival collections. A notable exception to this is a number of self portraits and portraits of his immediate family and the extended Stimson family which were tranferred with his studio negatives.

The negatives donated are 8"x10" and 5"x7" dry process glass plates or 8"x10" and 5"x7" cellulose nitrates, though examples of other negative formats also exist.

Dates

  • 1890s-1952
  • Majority of material found within 1890s-1930s

Creator

Language of Materials

English

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Copy Restrictions

Limited duplication of print materials allowed for research purposes. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Biographical Note

Joseph Elam Stimson was born in 1870 in Kansas. Following his father’s early death in 1886, he was chosen to apprentice with a cousin, James E. H. Stimson, in his photographic studio in Appleton, Wisconsin.

In 1889, Stimson relocated to Cheyenne, Wyoming and purchased the photographic studio of Carl Eitner, where he began taking portraits. Around 1894, State Engineer Elwood Mead asked Stimson to develop a set of negatives of the Big Horn Mountains. Impressed by their magnificence, Stimson accompanied Mead during the summer of 1895, but the the negatives taken during this trip were unusable when he returned to his studio. In 1899, Stimson accompanied new game warden Albert Nelson on a camping trip to the Tetons. These images eventually made their way into the hands of Union Pacific Railroad executives who hired Stimson to take promotional photographs along the route. Stimson was paid per image and allowed to keep the original negatives and sell prints for his own profit. He served in this capacity from 1900-1910. Often, Stimson would take the train or a small automobile that ran on the rails out to locations. An avid outdoorsman, Stimson would use his friends as subjects on fishing and camping trips for photos, making these occasions working holidays.

By 1903, when he secured a contract to produce a large number of photographs of Wyoming for the 1903 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Stimson had begun to experiment with colorization. He used watercolors, oils, pastels or colored pencils to colorize his black and white images to make them more realistic.

In 1929, Elwood Mead, now head of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, hired Stimson to photograph Western irrigation projects, including the Hoover Dam.

When his wife died in 1938, Stimson entered semi-retirement. He continued to color and sell photographs, but he was not as active in the business as before her death. Stimson died on February 8, 1952 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Extent

159.5 cubic feet (295 boxes + 5 lateral filing cabinet drawers (19.5 cubic feet prints, 140 cubic feet negatives))

Additional Description

Abstract

The J.E. Stimson Photograph Collection contains the photographs produced by Joseph Elam Stimson during his more than 50 years as a professional photographer in Wyoming. His photographs document the settlement, agricultural, and industrial development of Wyoming, especially along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad and in Southeast Wyoming.

Arrangement

The original organization of the negatives numerically by the photographer’s logbook numbers has been preserved whenever possible. There are two series of numbers beginning with 1, thus the earlier set is designated by an E before the number. Circa 1893, Stimson began a new logbook and restarted his numerical system with 1. The collection reflects this restart.

In many cases, the log numbers and description appear on the negative itself. Images that can be identified by a number on the negative can be found in Stimson’s log book (H2002-8, Wyoming State Archives).

Acquisition Information

The J.E. Stimson Collection was purchased by the Wyoming State Archives in 1952 from the Stimson family with a portion of the funds underwritten by the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce. The copyright to the collection was later transferred from the Stimson Family to the Wyoming State Archives.

Alternate Formats Available

Nearly all of the images in the J.E. Stimson Collection can be viewed in the Wyoming State Archives Online Photograph Database.

Related Material

P2002-8, J.E. Stimson Papers (including negative log book), Wyoming State Archives.

H-344, "Glimpses of Cheyenne Frontier Days, 1896-1902", booklet by J.E. Stimson, Wyoming State Archives.

OH-641, Oral History by Stimson’s daughter Louise Stimson Hallowell about his career, Wyoming State Archives.

MSS 276, "My Father’s Fifty Years of Wyoming Photography" by Louise Stimson Hallowell, Wyoming State Archives.

MSS 533, J.E. Stimson studio ledger, 1889-1898, Wyoming State Archives.

Oversized, framed and hand-colored photographs of Wyoming scenes produced under contract by J.E. Stimson for the State of Wyoming for two World’s Fairs, 1890s-1900s, Wyoming State Archives.

Examples of Stimson’s equipment and cameras can be found in the Wyoming State Museum collection.

Joseph Elam Stimson Photographs, 01208, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The AHC holds approximately 250 duplicate images from this collection, as per an agreement when the collection was purchased.

Processing Information

The collection was processed prior to 2005. The nitrate negatives have been physically separated from the glass plate negatives due to preservation concerns. Reference prints of all of the negatives were printed, and these prints were scanned circa 2013 for access. Medium format copy negatives were created by the Archives for many of the negatives. Beginning in 2018, scans from the original negatives were and continue to be created to replace poor quality reference print scans.

In 1977, a typewritten inventory of the images was produced by the Historical Department, based upon the entries in Stimson’s log book and captions on the negatives themselves. The photographs were also microfilmed for preservation, but the microfilm does not do the images justice due to the limitations of bi-tonal film, the reduced size of the 35mm film, and the derivative nature of the film.

Item level listing available on-site.

Subjects

Related Names

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Guide to the Joseph E. Stimson Photograph Collection, circa 1890s-1952
Status
Edited Full Draft
Author
Suzi Taylor
Date
2019
Language of description
English
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Finding aid is in English

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Wyoming State Archives, Wyoming Cultural Resources Division, Wyoming Department of State Parks & Cultural Resources Repository

https://wyoarchives.wyo.gov/index.php
Contact:
Barrett Building
2301 Central Avenue
Cheyenne Wyoming 82002 United States
(307) 777-7826

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