Beschreibung:

1. "Original Log—1927—Alaska." Autograph Manuscript Signed in block print ("Edward S. Curtis") to upper cover, in pencil, 81 pp plus blank leaf (detached but present), 8vo, various places in Alaska, June to July 19, 1927, housed in "Big 5" foolscap notebook with printed paper wrappers, some toning and chipping to paper, dampstain to upper cover at left and lower margin. 2. Autograph Manuscript Signed ("Edward S. Curtis"), in pencil, 22 pp, 4to, various places in Alaska, July 24-August 28, 1927, being the second part of his log kept during the Alaska trip, pages creased and toned, stapled at upper margin. This log closes with the return of Beth by plane to Southern California. Though identified on p 1 as a "Log," this manuscript may have been a letter to a family member ("Beth will see you soon after you get this and will tell you all about everything" it reads towards the end). The information in this "log" is NOT included in the typed transcription created by Beth Curtis, described below. It represents another version of events of these dates recorded by Curtis. 3. "Field Log / 1927." Typed Manuscript with Annotations, 74 pp, 4to, [Los Angeles], 1927, titled internally "A Rambling Log of the Field Season of the Summer of 1927," spots to p 1, mild thumbing and toning, bound with string in paper wrappers. Beth Curtis typed up her father's journals from the Alaska trip into this manuscript, a primary source for the final volume of Curtis's North American Indian volume XX. The contents of line item number 1, above, appear in this narrative. 4. CURTIS, BETH. Autograph Manuscript, approx. 120 pp recto and verso, 8vo, various places in Southern California, Washington, and Alaska, January 3 to August 16, 1927 (February, March, April and parts of May blank), being a journal kept by Curtis's daughter Beth during the 1927 summer trip through Alaska to photograph various tribes, housed in Standard Diary Daily Reminder (Cambridge: Standard Diary Co., 1927), blue cloth gilt. Provenance: Purchased by Dr. Billy Utley from Manford "Mag" Magnuson. THE RECORD OF THE LAST ALASKA TRIP. These manuscripts comprise a written record of Curtis's efforts in the summer of 1927 to photograph and record the tribes of Alaska. In June of that year, he traveled with his daughter Beth, Stewart and Eastwood from Seattle by steamship to Alaska. They traveled through the treacherous shoals and ice fields of the Northwest coast, arriving outside of Nome on June 20th. Once in June, they struggled to find a way to travel further, eventually buying a boat (which caused more delays). The Field Log records their arrival at Nunivak, July 10: "As we neared this village the natives all climbed a high sand dune and watched us as though they had never seen a boat before. They were certainly a picturesque lot gathered there on the grass grown sand dune. Beth and I have been ashore and exchanged smiles with the natives. They are certainly a happy looking lot. " Curtis ponders his assignment: "The natives here are perhaps the most primitive on the North American Continent. We should get some good material. We know now our decision to visit this island regardless of the problems was a wise one ... For the first time in all my thirty years work with the natives, I have found a place where no missionary has worked." July 22: Curtis moves the ethnographers Collins, Stewart, and Harold to Cape Atoline. He considers them fairly helpless: "They are like a bunch of infants and should be home in the hands of a wet nurse. Why are such inefficient men sent out?" They moved the bones they have collected, some of which Curtis describes as "overripe and still molting maggots." The group navigates Incredibly treacherous sailing and at one point their boat is grounded. On July 27, they arrive at a Hooper Bay village where 68 whale carcasses are being processed; Curtis says the smell is "beyond description." Beth Curtis also kept notes during the summer she accompanied her father on his Alask