The Allen Art Museum borrowed two photo albums and a journal kept by a student in an ecology class in 1915 for the current exhibit “Objects of Encounter: American Myths of Place.” The exhibit will be up until December 23.
Enid Bancroft Sutton was in the first ecology trip out west for credit with Professor Lynds Jones. He was one of the first professors in the U.S. to offer ecology and ornithology classes. Jones hired Native Americans from the Quileute tribe to bring the group to rocky islets in Northwest Washington to study bird nesting sites. The albums contain many photos of tribal members.
The students were trained to make detailed observations of flora, fauna, geographical features and climatic conditions to describe ecological zones they encountered on the long trip, in photographs and journals. For more description of the collection materials see the finding guide to the Enid Sutton Swan collection from our home page.
Very interesting material.
I believe that Dr. Jones’s legendary class trips across the country were made by automobile. In the early 1900’s this was no small feat, as the road system was less than optimal and travelers were subject to frequent breakdowns and muddy, nearly impassable stretches of “highway”.
Yes, but the first trip involved train travel. The other, later albums we have document car trips.