Archives West Finding Aid

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942)

William Henry Jackson began his photographic career in Omaha, Nebraska in 1867. He started out working for another photographer but he and his brother soon purchased their own studio. Jackson first made a name for himself when he and his assistant Arundel Hull traveled along the newly completed Union Pacific Railroad photographing the line, the railroad towns, and scenic wonders in 1869. Between 1870 and 1879 he was the photographer in charge for the Hayden Survey. He was the first photographer to reach Yellowstone National Park and his images played a part in the recognition of that area for special protection. In 1879 Jackson opened a studio in Denver, Colorado and in 1881 he began work for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. In 1892 he incorporated the W.H. Jackson Photography & Publishing company and traveled throughout the world as a photographer. In 1897 he moved to Detroit where he was involved with the Detroit Publishing Company who used his images as postcards. In 1924 the company went bankrupt and Jackson moved to Washington D.C. where he worked on his memoirs and painted historic western scenes.

C.R. Savage (1832-1909)

Charles R. Savage is perhaps best known for shooting the Golden Spike Ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. His photographic trips, however, took him throughout the West from the 1860s to the 1890s and his imagess were sold across the United States and reproduced in Eastern periodicals. A convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he grew up in Southampton, England and moved to New York City in 1855. He slowly mastered the new medium of photography and by the time he and his young family made their way to Utah in 1860 he was ready to set up a permanent studio. Savage was a savvy businessman whose profits from a successful art/photography store funded his various photographic endeavors. In Utah he was known not only as a photographer but also as a philanthropist and passionate defender of the Mormon Chuch. He would eventually enter into polygamist unions with four women.

I.W. Taber (1830-1912)

Isaiah West Taber was born in 1830 in Massachusetts. As a young man he tried many occupations (sailor, trader, rancher, miner and dentist) before settling on photography. He opened his first studio in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1854 and later operated a studio in Syracuse, New York before heading back to San Francisco in 1864 where he had spent several years as a young man. Although he initially was hired by the photographic firm of Bradley and Rulofson, he soon opened his own studio and quickly moved to establish himself as the leading photographer of the West Coast. In 1875 he obtained Carleton Watkins' collection of negatives and in the 1880s he opened a factory for producing dry-plate negatives. By 1900 his studios employed fifty people. His entire collection of negatives, however, was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.