Kern County Survey Collection

Photographs of agriculture and industry in Kern County, California, 1880s

Prints and Photographs Division

One of the last commissions of Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), early American landscape photographer, was a series of views of Kern County, California, executed in the late 1880s. As part of an effort to publicize this southern California region and encourage new settlement, local land developers asked Watkins to photograph Kern County agriculture, industry, and resources. In 1929 the Library received 415 original photoprints from the survey by transfer from the Bureau of Reclamation. The photographs depict ranch buildings, livestock, the propagation and processing of fruit and ground crops, methods of irrigation, and antimony mining operations, and include views of Bakersfield, the county seat. Captions provide extensive geographical, historical, and commercial information for each scene and key photographs to the four maps. There is an entry for the collection (LOT 3379) in the Prints and Photographs Divisional card catalog. Some of the items for which copy photography has been requested can be searched in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog).

Note: Information for this entry was compiled in the late 1970's for inclusion in: Special Collections in the Library of Congress: A Selective Guide. Compiled by Annette Melville. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1980. The entry was revised in 1998.

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• Selected Images from the Collection