A finding aid is a descriptive guide tothe content of a collection. The guide describes the origin, background, contents, and arrangement of a collection. It also includes a folder listing of the contents.
Processed Collections The alphbetical links below lead to an annotated list of all processed collections with links to the finding aids.
Arizona Historical Foundation Legacy Projects for Arizona's 2012 Centennial Celebration
Projects made possible by grants from the Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation and the H.W. Wilson Foundation.
Glass Plate Negative Project
This project involves three photographic collections. Each glass plate will be cleaned, re-housed, and digitized. The digitial images will be added to the Arizona Memory Project by 2012. Stay tuned for updates on progress.
The Arizona Photographic Company Collections
The Arizona Photographic Company was formed by a group of photographers based in Prescott and Yavapai County. They captured boom mining towns, landscapes, military camps, local businesses, formal portraits and people of the West from about 1900 to 1910. All images were taken on 8x10 gelatin silver glass plates.
Dane Coolidge Glass Plate Negative Collection
Dane Coolidge was a writer, naturalist, and photographer who followed the cattle drives west. His books were illustrated with his photographs of men, women, cattle drives, Indians, miners, prospectors, outlaws and lawmen. Coolidge's photographs were all captured on 5x7 gelatin silver glass plates between 1898 - 1917.
J.W. Hoover Lantern Slide Collection
Jonas Wenger Hoover was a professor of geology and geography at Arizona State University from 1924-1943. Used in his research and to illustrate his class lectures, these lantern slides cover such topics as various Indian tribes and reservations, the Salt River Valley, mining towns, the Grand Canyon, pertroglyphs, and desert plants and cacti.
Sacks Collection of the American West Project
The Sacks Collection of the American West is a bibliography of primary and secondary sources on the 19th century American West. The bibliography covers people, places and events in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Oregon and Mexico. Created by Dr. Benjamin Sacks the bibliography includes over 100,000 hand-written index cards, and over 15,,000 supporting documents. The bibliography entries are cross-referenced and many are annotated.
In an effort to enhance access, an online version of the collection is being created. When completed, this site will contain information from over 100,000 index cards, and scanned copies of over 15,000 supporting documents. Coming Soon: a blog on the collection and project.
AHF has mounted over
500 photographs to the Arizona
Memory Project This online digital repository was established
by the Arizona State Library,
Archives and Public Records. It includes collections from
archival and cultural institutions from across the state. The
Arizona Historical Foundation has contributed five exhibits:
