Throughout his life,
James Gordon Steese traveled the world extensively. Whether he was traveling
to France to view the battlefields of Verdun, along the waters edge of
the Panama Canal, atop an Arabian Horse, or in the most remote mountain
ranges of Alaska, there never seemed to be a camera far from his side.
Through his own documentation, that
of his siblings, and official government photos he collected; Steese left
a wealth of photographs documenting some of the largest engineering projects
of the Twentieth Century.
Found within this section are selected
portions of the photographic albums of the Steese Collection. The original
albums were both gifts to Steese, personal albums from trips, and collected
photos as mentioned. The albums have no true sense of order or theme; several
have photographs of different subjects within them. In order to streamline
the presentation of these photos, the following pages group the photos
from different albums together by subject instead of by album.
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Panama contains photographs of the Panama Canal
and Railway Construction projects and operational photographs through the
1940's.
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World War I contains photographs belonging to
James Gordon Steese and his brother Charles M. Steese while they were both
on duty during WWI. Many photographs pertain to instances mentioned in
J.G. Steese's Diary from his travels through Europe immediately after the
war.
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Alaska holds many photographs of the Alaska Road
Commission and Railroad. Several contain images of early road building
equipment in the territory and the methods used to travel through the rough
terrain.
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California contains photographs from two distinct
time periods. Several are from 1907 after the great earthquake of 1906.
The US military sent West Point Cadets to tour and assist the damaged areas
of San Francisco. The larger amount of photographs are from the early nineteen-teens
when J.G. Steese was stationed as an Engineer at Ft. Mason in San Francisco
Bay between the current day Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.
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Travels highlight photographs of J.G. Steese's
many trips throughout the world.
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Miscellaneous holds various photographs of J.G.
Steese and other images that do not fit in the above categories.
It is to note that these photographs
only represent a small portion of the entire collection. They have been
handpicked for quality, subject matter, or interest to the historian who
may study James Gordon Steese or his work. The phots are displayed in a
thumbnail image of the original. Clicking on any thumbnail will open the
page that the photograph is housed on. To view advanced details in the
image, any photo may be clicked on to open a viewing window of the full
size photograph. Listed next to each full photograph is the image size
(in pixels), the file size, and the location of the photograph in the collection.
No photograph may be copied, used, or reproduced without express permission
of the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections.
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