[Alaska]. [Photography]

[Vernacular Photograph Album of Raymond Cesena, Documenting Logging and Hunting in the Alaskan Wilderness During World War II]

[Various locations in Alaska: 1942-1943]. 117 original photographs, measuring from 2.25 x 2.5 to 4 x 5 inches. Oblong quarto album with limp suede pictorial covers. Light chipping and wear at edges of covers and album leaves. Photos in corner mounts; minor dampstaining at margins of a few images; several photographs loose. With [8]pp. of "Memory Leaves" partially completed in manuscript at front of album. About very good. Item #2645

An excellent vernacular photograph album of nearly 120 original images compiled by Army veteran Raymond Cesena of Visalia, California, that depicts his experience in the military logging camps on Kodiak Island and surrounding smaller islands while World War II was still ongoing. Cesena had been serving overseas before being returned to the United States and sent to Alaska in 1942, where he and his colleagues at the logging sites and mill at Kodiak produced lumber for the construction needs of the U.S. Army during the war. The men lived in tent camps and lived a fairly hard-scrabble life as they cleared land to establish operations, but eventually were engaged in a robust, large-scale endeavor. From March to November 1942, 4.5 million feet of lumber were harvested from Woody Island, before moving camp to Afognak Island the next year. The album depicts the heavy industrial aspects of these camps, such as the large machinery, the massive saws, and other latest equipment necessary for logging at the scale required. There are also several images of transportation, and many of the camps and of the lives of the men who worked there. A good number show their hunting excursions, likely one of the only diversions available to the loggers. In all, the album provides a fascinating glimpse of life and work at this remote but vital Alaskan outpost for war production during the early 1940s.

Price: $2,000.00