(CALIFORNIA -- PHOTOGRAPHY.) Airviews of Ward Redwood Tract Located at Mouth of Klamath River Northern California. Title from inner album cover. 21 silver print photographs, several captioned in the lower margin, several captioned in the negative, one a folding reference map. Oblong 4to format, 8x11½ inches, contemporary screw-post album covers, minor wear; surface of first photo rubbed from facing cover. Np, circa 1918 Fine group of early photographs documenting the expanse of redwood timber at the mouth of the Klamath River, California.
Logging has long been a necessary and profitable business but during World War I northern California saw a dramatic increase in the felling of its large redwood forests. This, in turn, led to the formation of the Save the Redwoods League in 1918, a group of conservationists intent on protecting and preserving the old growth redwood groves. Throughout the ensuing decades, the League was successful in acquiring large acreages of timber and worked to form the California State Park system. A National Park was the League's general objective, but it wasn't until 1968 that congress approved The Redwoods as federally protected.
Our album of photographs presents as a promotional aid, potentially used by the Save the Redwoods League in their early days of lobbying for protection of the forests. A man appears in two of the photos, dwarfed by the gigantic canopy, who, without implying a definitive identification, bears a strong resemblance to Newton B. Drury, the first executive secretary of the League, and the man responsible for publicity and fundraising for the group during its first twenty years.
Three of the photographs are stamped in the negative with the imprint of Emma B. Freeman (Freeman Art Company, Eureka, Cal.), a noted photographer based in northern California from 1906 to 1919.