Bailey Willis Glass Plate Photonegatives Collection consists of 160 glass plate photonegatives and 119 modern copy prints mostly of Japanese subjects. Depicting Meiji-era Japan and traditional paintings, the photographs are attributed to the prominent American geologist Bailey Willis, who travelled to Japan in 1904 in his return trip from China to the U.S. From 1903 to 1904, Willis led a scientific expedition to China to conduct geological and paleontological investigations under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The expedition was proposed by Dr. Charles D. Walcott, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, who would become the fourth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907. After the expedition, the Smithsonian Institution took custody of 375 glass plate photonegatives taken by Willis during his Chinese expedition. The current Willis Collection does not retain Chinese glass plate photonegatives, which appear to be housed in the Huntington Library. Twelve original prints of China are in the Charles Lang Freer Papers, acquired by Freer directly from Willis. The Willis Collection richly documents Japanese local scenes, people, buildings, industries, agriculture, and art. It also contains a small number of Middle Eastern and Western images. These photographs are thought to be taken and/or purchased by Willis during his short stay in Japan in 1904, although there is no direct evidence that Willis was the original photographer of any or all of these. Since there are many views of locations that Willis never visited, it seems likely that the plates were acquired from another photographer.
Arrangement:
Box 1-3 Japanese paintings; Box 4-11 Japanese scenes; Box 12 Middle Eastern scenes, miscellaneous; Box 13 Western scenes, miscellaneous; Box 14 Japanese painting and scenes; Box 15 Japanese scenes
Biographical / Historical:
Bailey Willis was born at his parents' country estate at Idlewild-on-Hudson, near Cornwall, New York in 1857. He was the son of Nathaniel Parker Willis, a poet and journalist, and Cornelia (Grinnell) Willis of the prominent New England Grinnell family. His maternal granduncle, Henry Grinnell, was a benefactor of Arctic expeditions. His mother was instrumental in nurturing young Willis's interest in nature and exploration. After his father's death when Willis was ten years old, his mother, concerned about her son's "tendency to dream ineffectually," decided to train him in the stern disciplines of mathematics and science (Willis, A Yanqui in Patagonia 4). At the age of thirteen, Willis began schooling in Germany, where he received rigorous Prussian education.
Returning to New York in 1874, Willis entered the School of Mines at Columbia University, graduating with degrees in Mining Engineering in 1878 and Civil Engineering in 1879. After graduation Willis worked as an assistant for Raphael Pumpelly, a prominent geologist, by estimating iron and coal resources for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Geological work in the Pacific Northwest convinced Willis to support the preservation of Mount Rainier and its surroundings. The Mount Rainier National Park was established by law in 1899.
In 1882 Willis married his cousin Altona Holstein Grinnell. After her death in 1896, he married Margaret Delight Baker, daughter of anatomist Frank Baker. Margaret assisted Willis as draftsman and secretary.
Willis first earned international recognition as a geologist in the field of structural geology. Following the bankruptcy of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1884, Willis worked on assignments from the United States Geological Survey. While working in the southern Appalachian Mountains, he became interested in what had caused folding and faulting. By using laboratory experiments, Willis investigated the conditions causing the deformation of strata and published his new interpretation of the deformation in the report "The Mechanics of Appalachian Structure" (1893). This study established him as one of the country's leading structural geologists. His later book Geologic Structures (1923) went into three editions.
In addition to geological studies in the United States, Willis actively engaged himself in foreign expeditions throughout his life. From 1903 to1904, Willis led a scientific expedition to China under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. With Eliot Blackwelder, an associate geologist, and R. H. Sargent, a topographer, the expedition investigated the geomorphology, stratigraphy, and paleontology of the country. The result of the expedition appeared as Research in China in 1907, which won a gold medal from the Geographic Society of France. Furthermore, in recognition of this work, Willis was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Berlin in 1910. In the same year the Argentine government invited Willis to conduct a geological survey of Patagonia for the region's irrigation potential.
In 1915, at age 59, Willis accepted a position of Chairman of the Department of Geology at Stanford University, where he remained affiliated as a professor emeritus after his retirement. In California, Willis extended his research to the area of seismology, and served as President of the Seismological Society of America. Believing in the permanence of continents, he held an oppositional view to the continental drift theories. In 1949, Willis died in Palo Alto, California at age 91.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1991.06
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Bailey Willis Glass Plate Photonegatives Collection. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Identifier:
FSA.A1991.06
Archival Repository:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 296, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Telecommunications, Production Records
Earthquakes, Plate Tectonics, and Continental Drift Articles, 1971-1973
Container:
Box 1 of 21
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Restrictions:
Until the death of the Donor, SIA will notify the Donor prior to, or within 7 days after, the materials have been accessed for research, Transferring office; 9/5/2007 Deed of Gift; Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 16-376, David H. DeVorkin Papers
Continental Drift - Discovery in the Deep [Technical Aspects], 16mm
Container:
Box 1 of 4
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Rights:
Restricted to reference use only. Copyright not owned by the Smithsonian Institution. Permission to duplicate must be obtained from films' creators, Transferring office; 9/2/2008 memorandum, Yowell to Rothberg; Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 08-166, National Museum of Natural History, Films
Materials that include student grades are restricted until 2081. Nude photographs of Grover were restricted until 2017. Electronic records are restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Grover Sanders Krantz papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Grover Sanders Krantz papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Organisms and continents through time : methods of assessing relationships between past and present biologic distributions and the positions of continents : a symposium volume of 23 papers / edited by N.F. Hughes
Antarctic geology and geophysics. Symposium on Antarctic Geology and Solid Earth Geophysics, Oslo, 6.-15. Aug. 1970, organized by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Ed. by Raymond J. Adie
Author:
Symposium on Antarctic Geology and Solid Earth Geophysics (1970 : Oslo, Norway) Search this
International Union of Geological Sciences Search this
Editor:
Adie, Raymond J (Raymond John) 1925-2006 Search this
Physical description:
6 leaves, 875 pages illustrations, maps, tables, diagrams 30 cm
Implications of continental drift to the earth sciences. NATO Advanced Study Institute, April 1972, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Edited by D.H. Tarling and S.K. Runcorn
Author:
NATO Advanced Study Institute (1972 : University of Newcastle upon Tyne) Search this
