[Alaska Photographica]. [Selmer, Pauline]

[Annotated Vernacular Photograph Album and Scrapbook of Miss Pauline Selmer, a High School Student in Alaska During the Great Depression]

Skagway: 1931-1932. [35] leaves, illustrated with 205 original vernacular photographs, from thumbnails to 9.5 x 3.5 inches. Oblong folio. Contemporary textured black cloth. Minor soiling and edge wear to covers. Some images missing or slightly worn. Very good. Item #2549

A rare peek at the high school years of a young Alaskan woman named Pauline Selmer during the early portion of the Great Depression. On the inside front cover, as well as in at least one of the images, Selmer indicates she was attending Skagway High School at the time she compiled the album. Her collection of photographs feature scenes around Skagway, such as the White Pass Hospital, street scenes downtown, the Chilkoot Barracks, a banner leading into town that reads, "Skagway Welcomes You," the school house, the E&R Athletic Hall, Lynn Canal, a glacier near Haines, and the Broadway Theater.

Selmer appears to have been an energetic young woman. She features a trip to Burro Creek with eleven other women in late-May 1931; one of the photographs documenting this trip is a group shot featuring all twelve women, each identified in manuscript around the image. She also apparently played on the Skagway High basketball team. The largest photograph in the album is a full portrait photograph of Selmer kneeling in her uniform, holding a basketball reading, "S.H.S. '31." Selmer also manages to capture some of the scenery around Skagway, most notably the glacier and numerous additional views of Upper Lake Dewey, local waterfalls, a local airfield, and the Skagway waterfront.

Numerous family members and fellow Alaskan residents are pictured and identified in the album, such as Pauline's mother, Raymond Swartz, Leah Ray, numerous others identified by first name, and a Japanese woman named Eiko Tsuijikawa. Tsuijikawa has inscribed the photo "To Pauline Selmer." Selmer is pictured in dozens of photographs with her family and friends, almost always with one female friend or another. She is additionally pictured in the company of visiting Navy men.

A unique assemblage of original photographs collected by a Skagway highschooler, featuring the people and places in this still-remote Alaska town, almost a century ago now.

Price: $2,250.00