Alaska State Library – Historical Collections

Scope and Contents

This collection includes interviews of women in Alaska born between 1866-1937. Each woman discusses her life, her work, and her experiences in Alaska. Contained in this collection are sound cassettes, logs, and transcripts of some interviews, a video recording, articles, and photocopies of photographs.

Scope and Contents This collection contains two photograph albums with 320 black and white images. The images are circa WWII in Alaska. They primarily depict the life and work of military personnel. The images are of scenery, villages, aircrafts, and people, and were taken from all around the state of Alaska. Subjects include: Military, military planes, Juneau, Sitka, Gulkana, biplanes, Wasilla Public Library, Alaska Star Airlines, Northern Commercial Co., Bush pilots, Florence Blanchard. The...

Content Description The items in this collection were saved by Vera Sidars, who was an officer of the Alaska Yukon Pioneers for many years. She maintained detailed ledgers, collected in a three-ring binder, of members who dropped or canceled their membership; a second binder holds ledgers of those who were deceased through 2010. Included among the ledger sheets are original applications for membership, notable for the “Brief History” section in which prospective members describe personal events and highlights...

Scope and Contents

Individual collections from donors who are members of the Alaska Yukon Pioneers; Art Knutson, Historian.

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of records related to the non-profit corporation Alaskan Arts & Crafts Inc. The items include registration cards, general correspondence, finance information, guest registers, exhibit information, Centennial Art Show – 1967 information, articles of incorporation and by-laws, and photographs of exhibited artwork and some artists.

Content Description This collection consists of hundreds of biographies of prominent Alaskans. The original collection of Alaskan Biography Files were gathered and/or written by Robert N. DeArmond and fit into one letter-sized archival box. Specifically, the collection consisted of 25 folders of biographies and 2 envelopes of unorganized political biography clippings. Many of those original files are from the 1950s-1960s. The original files were photocopied and became part of a greater collection...

Scope and Contents Alaskan Diary 1916 ( July 4 - August 26): 104 page typescript, gives a detailed accounting of the travel arrangements of the Trip to Alaska, beginning with a train ride through Canada, stopping at Banff and then a steamship from Vancouver, BC, through the inside passage to Skagway; over the White Pass by railroad to Whitehorse and then down the Yukon River by steamboat to St. Michael, then continuing by steamship back to Seattle, WA. This “official” diary also contains a typed copy of Dr....

Scope and Contents A study of the images suggests that these are the photographs of a 1914 surveyor’s trip of the Alaskan Engineering Commission. Thomas Riggs Jr. and two other men surveyed the already existing Alaska Railroad outside Cordova, Alaska, and then the land for a possible expansion. The images suggest the trip started with a voyage off the coast of Oregon and Washington and continued to Cordova Bay, Alaska, with sea passage provided by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. Photographs show...

Scope and Contents

The Alaskan Hotel collection contains 7 photographs (and 7 copies) of the Alaskan Hotel and the original proprietors. The donor has also included a short history of the McClosky family who built and ran the hotel. The Alaskan Hotel is still operating today.

Content Description This is a mixed collection documenting the growing relations between Alaska and Russia. The Siberia-Alaska cultural exchanges were made possible through the efforts of Dixie Belcher, other members of the Alaskan Performing Artists for Peace group, Russian and American government officials, local businesses, and interested parties. The scrapbook covers three of the cultural exchanges that came about as part of these individual’s efforts. The first exchange was a two week long tour in 1986,...