Guide to the Charles A. Heath Lantern Slide Collection

This finding aid describes the Charles A. Heath Lantern Slide Collection, part of the NPS History Collection. To search this guide for names, places, key words, or phrases enter Ctrl F on your keyboard (command key + F key on a Mac). Request an in-person research appointment or get more information by contacting the archivist.

Charles A. Heath, February 1905. (Courtesy of the Halstead family)

Collection Overview

Collection Number: HFCA 2884
Creator: Heath Charles Andrews, 1860-1959
Title: Charles A. Heath Lantern Slide Collection
Dates: ca. 1900-1914 (bulk dates: 1905-1911)
Volume of Collection: 148 EA
Language of Materials: English

Digitized Copies: This collection has been digitized. Direct online access to these images is pending. In the meantime, please contact the archivist.

Conditions Governing Use: The collection is open for research use. However, it is stored in cold storage and requires acclimation to room temperature before use. Justification for handling fragile originals (rather than using digital scans) and at least 48 hours prior notice is required for access to this collection. Copyright of Heath's images was transferred to the NPS through the deed of gift. Images by others may be within the collection and users are responsible for ensuring that their use complies with US copyright laws. For more information, see In Copyright | Rights Statements. See also the NPS general copyright and restrictions information.

Provenance: The collection was donated to the NPS History Collection by Charles Heath's great-grandnieces, Carolyn and Gwen Halstead, in July 2024.

Processing Note: This collection was processed and described by Allison Phelps in October 2024.

Rights Statements for Archival Description: This Guide to the Charles A. Heath Lantern Slide Collection is in the public domain.
Preferred Citation: Charles A. Heath Slide Collection, NPS History Collection (HFCA 2884)
Location of Repository: NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, PO Box 50, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425

Related Materials:

• Charles Andrews Heath Papers at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.

Biographical Note

Charles Andrews Heath was born on December 24, 1860, in Curtisville (now Interlaken), Massachusetts. His parents were Theodore Selden Heath, a clockmaker, and Mary Eveline Slocum Heath. He graduated from Williams College in 1882 and married Jennie June Greene a short time later. They had two children, Albert and Alice, born in 1888 and 1892, respectively.

The couple moved to Chicago in 1883 where Charles got a job with the Albert Dickenson Seed Company, where he worked for the next thirty-seven years. About 1920 he founded the Continental Seed Company. During his 75-year career as a seedsman, he gained a reputation as a lecturer, researcher, and a weekly columnist for the Seed Weekly News. An admirer of Theodore Roosevelt and considered by his friends to be a frontiersman, Heath often traveled for recreation. He wrote an account of his 1905 trip to Yellowstone National Park, published as Trial of the Trail that same year. That travelogue details the 17-day camping trip he took with a party of 29, including family, friends, colleagues, and the staff of a camping outfitter hired to guide, set up camp, and prepare food for them. The party left on July 1, 1905, and followed the Burlington Route from Chicago, Illinois to Cody, Wyoming. They took the Sylvian Route into Yellowstone, a recently created stage road that boasted the most spectacular scenery. Some of the images in this collection were used in Trial of the Trail, including slides 77, 79, 98, 99, 102 and 104. Heath traveled from Chicago to Yellowstone National Park every summer from 1905 to 1909. He also visited the Grand Teton range. After Glacier National Park was established in 1910, Heath took a group camping there in 1911. Heath documented his park visits with his camera and had colorized glass lantern slides created from the images upon his return to Chicago.

Heath was a diligent diarist, recording historically significant events in the Chicago area for 70 years. He taught a men’s bible class at a Presbyterian church in Chicago for 50 years. Charles Heath died March 21, 1959, just short of his 100th birthday, at St. Luke’s hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

Scope and Content Note

Glass lantern slides created for Heath and by commercial lantern slide manufacturers such as the Kiser Photo Company, Moore Bond & Company, Charles Beseler Company, the Charlotte M. Pinkerton Studio, Detroit Photographic Company, W.A. Morse, S. Townsend, McIntosh Stereopticon, and the Keystone View Company. The slides are largely scenic in nature, depicting lakes, mountains, canyons, rivers, and geysers. A smaller number of images document the peoples and activities of each party, including camping, railroad and boat travel, and their activities. A few slides document signs and map routes and a handful were never colorized. Lantern slides of Glacier National Park illustrate glaciers, the hotel, and other areas shortly after the park was established.

Arrangement

Arranged by slide number.

Container List

BOX 01
Slides 001-074

BOX 02
Slides 075-0148

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