Yale’s Beinecke Library is a tremendous resource for the study of environmental history in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the American West. Below please find a sample of collections held at the Beinecke. For further information on the Beinecke’s extensive holdings, please visit the Beinecke Library’s website.
The Rachel Carson Papers consist of manuscripts, notebooks, letters, newspaper clippings, photos, and printed material relating to the life and career of Rachel Carson. The collection spans the years 1921 to 1981, with the bulk of the material covering the period from 1950 to 1964. For each of Carson’s four major books–Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us, The Edge of the Sea, and Silent Spring –there are research materials, notes and notebooks, manuscript drafts, correspondence, promotional material, reviews, copies of abridgments or serializations, and related material. In addition to correspondence about her publications, the Papers contain a variety of letters to Carson accompanied by some original letters or carbons of letters written by Carson.
The Carson Papers measure 53.5 linear feet (119 boxes). Their call number is: YCAL MSS 46
Carroll T. Hobart Papers. Carroll T. Hobart was a Northern Pacific Railroad Superintendent who became manager of the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, the first company to secure a concession in Yellowstone National Park. The papers include letters, photographs, printed material, and miscellaneous documents. Most of the letters concern Hobart’s business activities; principal correspondents include his wife Alice, his brother Charles F. Hobart (a contractor), and T. F. Oakes and Robert Harris of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The photographs include early, rare images of Yellowstone National Park by Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and F. Jay Haynes. The papers include documents and financial papers relating to the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company and the Northern Pacific Railroad, in particular to the railroad’s interest in promoting travel to Yellowstone along its route.
The Hobart Papers comprise 7.3 linear feet (11 boxes). Their call number is WA MSS S-2396
Savage Mining Company and Associated Records. The Savage Mining Company, incorporated in 1862, was one of many companies which mined the Comstock Lode in Storey County, Nevada. The records document the history of the Comstock Lode; they focus on mining operations, but include information about the San Francisco stock market and mining related court cases in both Nevada and California. In addition to the Savage Mining Company, the collection includes corporate and operating records for numerous other Comstock operations that were related to the Savage Mining Company. The bulk of the material falls between 1860 and 1900. The collection is arranged in twelve series by kind of document and then, within each series, by company of origin. The series include executive records, operation records, reports of ore and bullion production, financial records, inventories of physical property, pay roll records, and tax records.
The collection comprises 60 linear feet (263 boxes). Its call number is WA MSS S-1318
North Star Mining Company and Associated Records documents the history of quartz mining in Grass Valley, Nevada County, California. The North Star Mining Company was founded in 1852. By 1900 its corporate successors had assumed the property and operations of most of the area’s surrounding mines. The collection consists of the corporate records including deeds and maps of the area, as well as printed material from ten mining companies. The collection is organized by company; within each company, material is arranged by record type: executive records, operating records, reports on ore and bullion production, financial records, pay rolls, and inventory records.
The collection comprises 109.5 linear feet (251 boxes). Its call number is WA MSS S-1322
Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian (U.S.) Papers, 1871-1877. Commanded by Lieutenant George Montague Wheeler, the Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian initially focused on territory lying south of the Central Pacific Railroad; it soon grew in scope to become an effort to map all of the United States west of the 100th meridian. Often referred to as the Wheeler Survey in honor of its commander, the survey grew out of the Army’s desire to create maps featuring the geological aspects of the West, man-made improvements, and all the “conformation, obstacles and resources of the country.” The survey ceased independent operations on June 30, 1879 when the U. S. Geological Survey was formed. The collection contains copies of letters signed by Wheeler and other officers of the survey; registers of correspondence sent and received; records of meteorological and topographical observations; atlas sheets; and photographs of parts of the territory covered by the expeditions.
The 47 volumes in collection contain some 7,500 pages. Its call number is WA MSS S-744
Records from the United States Carson City Land Office (Carson City, Nev.), 1863-1891.
The Carson City Land Office was the first Land Office in Nevada. The eight volumes in the collection contain incoming and outgoing letters and accounts for Carson City and Eureka land offices, including over 200 letters from the Commissioner of the Land Office in Washington. Four letterpress copybook, which date from February to June, 1876; September 1879 to October 1880; October 1886 to July 1889; and July 1889 to January 1891, comprise approximately 2000 pages of letters to the General Land Office in Washington, and to attorneys, mine owners, and claimants of lands. Three other volumes include a quarterly account book of the receiver of public moneys for lands sold at Carson City, March-June 1869, and December 1873 to June 1880; a register of receipts under the Homestead Act of 1862 for March 1864 to August 1870; and certificates of purchase for town lots at Gold Hill, Nevada, February 1865 to January 1876. The correspondence includes materials on the creation of Carson City, Ophir City, and Virginia City, Nevada as well as on mining, timber and railroad lands in the area, and an attempt to establish a reservation for the Washoe Indians.
The collection’s call number is WA MSS S-2393
Ledgers, printed material, and photograph albums relating to George H. Bissell and the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. A small collection of material created and collected by George H. Bissell, the driving force in creating the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, the first petroleum company in the United States. The ledgers contain manuscript copies of the articles of incorporation, the by-laws, minutes of the board of trustees, and records of stock transactions for the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. The ledger records the monthly meetings of the Trustees of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company from January through July, 1855, during which time Benjamin Silliman Jr., (in the employ of the company) issued his famous report on the qualities of the petroleum found in Venango County, and Bissell and his associates began selling stock in the company and buying more and more land in western Pennsylvania. A thirty-page section of the ledger records sales of stock in the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company in 1855, the first year of its existence. A second ledger records sales of stock through 1861. Another volume contains some two dozen pamphlets showing the array of business ventures in which Bissell was involved - mostly concentrated on petroleum, but also including silver mining, timber, and marble quarrying ventures.
The collection’s call number is: Beinecke Library Uncat MSS 1166 volumes 1-7
19th Century Landscape Photography of the American West. The Yale Collection of Western Americana has extensive collections of work by pioneer photographers Carleton Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan, A. J. Russell, William Henry Jackson and Frank J. Haynes. Photographic formats include mammoth plate images (20 x 22” or larger), large format images on formal mounts, cabinet cards, and stereographs. The collection also contains an extensive collection of books illustrated with original photographs including The Yosemite book: A description of the Yosemite Valley and the adjacent region of the Sierra Nevada and of the big trees of California written by Josiah Dwight Whitney for the California Geological Survey and illustrated with 28 original photographs by Carleton Watkins (New York, 1868) [Call Number: Zc72 +868c] and The Great West Illustrated in a series of photographic views across the Continent … which published 50 of the more than 200 photographs that A. J. Russell made along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad (New York, 1869) [Call Number: WA Photos 399]. To find additional examples of photographic collections, search under the photographers’ names as “authors” in ORBIS.
Reports of Territorial and State fish and game commissions. The many government publications collected by the Yale Collection of Western Americana include extensive runs of the annual reports of territorial and state commissions charged with oversight of fish and game resources.
Water in the West. The Yale Collection of Western Americana has also built extensive collections about the activities of various private and municipal water companies involved in hydraulic mining, irrigation, and drinking water.