REFERENCE CODE: AkAMH

REPOSITORY NAME:
Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center
Bob and Evangeline Atwood Alaska Resource Center
625 C Street
Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone: 907-929-9235
Fax: 907-929-9233
Email: resourcecenter@anchoragemuseum.org

Guide prepared by: Bruce Merrell, museum volunteer

TITLE: Morgan Sherwood Gold Rush Ephemera Collection

COLLECTION NUMBER: B1995.031

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

Dates: 1897-1995

Extent: 2 boxes; 2 linear feet

Language and Scripts: The collection is in English.

Name of creator(s): Morgan Sherwood

Administrative/Biographical History:
Morgan Sherwood donated the collection in 1995-97 with the intention that it be used as part of
a gold rush centennial exhibition that was being planned by the museum for the summer of
1997.1 Correspondence in the museum’s donor file includes “an abbreviated ‘script’ for an
exhibit of these items” titled “Images and artifacts of popular culture from the Klondike-Alaska
Gold Rushes” (Morgan Sherwood to Diane Brenner, November 22, 1995).

Morgan Bronson Sherwood was born Oct. 22, 1929, in Anchorage and spent the first 19 years
of his life here, graduating from Anchorage High School in 1947. He earned his master's and
doctorate degrees in history from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sherwood held teaching positions at the University of Maryland, the University of Cincinnati
and the University of California Davis, the latter from 1965 to 1991, when he retired. While at
U.C. Davis, he helped edit the journal Agricultural History for many years, served as editorial
adviser to half a dozen scholarly journals and book publishers and was a member of or an

1 The exhibit catalog is: Dean Littlepage, Gold Fever in the North: The Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush Era: A Gold Rush
Centennial Exhibition (Anchorage: Anchorage Museum of History and Art, 1997).

advisory board appointee to a number of organizations devoted to the American West and
environmental history.

Sherwood was the author of several books about Alaska and its history including Exploration of
Alaska, 1865-1900, which was selected for The Alaska 67: A Guide to Alaska’s Best History
Books by the Alaska Historical Society in 2006. He also wrote Big Game in Alaska: A History
of Wildlife and People, and The Cook Inlet Collection: Two Hundred Years of Selected Alaskan
History. He was an editorial advisor for Alaska Journal and Alaska History. In 1983, he
received an honorary degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In addition to his
research in American science and technology, the American West and Alaska, and
environmental history, he maintained a lifelong interest in magic and quackery and their
histories. Sherwood and his wife Jeanie built a cabin at Halibut Cove across Kachemak Bay
from Homer and for three decades, spent their summers there. Morgan Sherwood died of
cancer in Davis, California, on October 31, 2000 and at his request, his ashes were distributed
over Kachemak Bay.2

Scope and Content Description:
The collection consists of 54 items including videotapes, audio cassette tapes, movie posters,
playing cards, sheet music, postcards, and illustrations from books, magazines, and newspapers,
plus a three-ring binder of miscellaneous photocopies, all associated with the gold rush period
of Alaska and the Klondike.

Arrangement: Arranged by format.

CONDITIONS GOVERNING ACCESS AND USE

Restrictions on Access: The collection is open for research use.

Physical Access: Original items, except for binder containing photocopies, all in good
condition.

Technical Access: No special equipment is needed to access the materials.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use:
The Anchorage Museum is the owner of the materials and makes available reproductions for
research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from the Anchorage
Museum before any reproduction use. The Anchorage Museum does not necessarily hold
copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may
require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.

2 Anchorage Daily News, November 7, 2000, B7;
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/MorgonBronsonSherwood.htm, accessed
August 23, 2012.



Preferred Citation:
Morgan Sherwood Gold Rush Ephemera Collection, Anchorage Museum, B1995.031


ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Acquisition and Appraisal Information:
Items were donated to the museum by Morgan Sherwood between 1995 and 1997.

Separated Materials:
Items .1, .13, .19, .30, .31, and .54 located in oversize storage.
Items .29 and .45 transferred to Museum book collection.
Unnumbered items transferred to Museum Collections:
a. Bar of soap—“The Eldorado Hotel, Dawson City, Yukon”
b. Amethyst geode with miniature installation of gold miners pushing an ore car
c. Eight cans of Genuine Buhach California Reliable Insecticide
d. Metal enamel sign—“White Pass and Yukon Route, Gateway to the Yukon,” green,
yellow, blue, dark blue, and white, 10” diameter

SUBJECTS
Klondike River Valley (Yukon)—Gold discoveries
Gold rushes—Yukon Territory—1890-1900
Gold rushes—Alaska—1890-1900
Alaska—Gold discoveries
Gold mines and mining—Alaska—Drama
Gold mines and mining—Alaska—Comic books, strips, etc.
Gold mines and mining—Alaska—Popular works

Detailed Description of the Collection

Poster
 1 —“The Little Witwater Home Gold Machine,” a cartoon by Rowland Emett, OBE; color, rolled, reproduction, 24” x 24” [located in oversize] VHS Videotapes
 2 —The Gold Rush, directed by Charlie Chaplin. Viking Video Classics, n.d.
 3 —Road to Utopia, starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Paramount Pictures, 1946, 1973, black & white, 90 minutes.
 4 —Rex Beach’s The Spoilers, starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich. Universal Pictures, 1942, 1969, black & white, 88 minutes.
 5 —North to Alaska, starring John Wayne. Twentieth Century Fox, 1960, 1988, color, 117 minutes.
 6 —Call of the Wild, starring Charlton Heston. Front Row Entertainment, 1994, color, 100 minutes.
 7 —Call of the Wild, starring Rick Schroder and Mia Sara. Cabin Fever Entertainment, 1992, color, 97 minutes. Audio Cassette Tapes
 8 —Sergeant Preston of the Yukon . . . and his wonder dog, King! Radio Spirits, 1992, six audio cassettes containing nine hours of vintage radio programs that originally aired between 1942 and 1947. Posters, Illustrations, and Publications
 9a —White Pass & Yukon Route Souvenir Playing Cards, in red cardboard slip case, n.d. although enclosed card with tourist information implies 1910-1930. Complete deck except for ten cards in the accompanying picture frame.
 9b —White Pass & Yukon Route Souvenir Playing Cards, sample of ten cards showing various scenes, a map, and a card with distances in Alaska and the Yukon, in frame, easily removed
 10 —Lobby photo: A scene from The Spoilers, color, 8” x 10”
 11 —Lobby photo: Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, black & white, 8” x 10”
 12 —Lobby photo: Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, black & white, 8” x 10”
 13 —Movie poster: James Oliver Curwood’s Yukon Gold, starring Kirby Grant, featuring Martha Hyer, Harry Lauter and Chinook, the Wonder Dog. Monogram Pictures, n.d., color, 40” x 27” [located in oversize]
 14 —Lobby card: Yukon Gold, color, 11” x 14”
 15 —Lobby card: The Far Country, starring James Stewart, Ruth Roman, Corinne Calvet, Walter Brennan. Universal Pictures, 1955, color, 11” x 14”
 16 —Lobby card: The Far Country, 11” x 14”
 17 —Lobby card: James Oliver Curwood’s Trail of the Yukon. Monogram Pictures, n.d., 11” x 14”
 18 —Lobby card: North to the Klondike, with Brod Crawford, Andy Devine, Lon Chaney and Evelyn Ankers. A Realart Re-release, n.d., color, 11” x 14”
 19 —Movie poster: The Wild North, starring Stewart Granger, Wendell Corey, with Cyd Charisse. Loewe’s Inc., 1951, color, 36” x 13.5” [located in oversize]
20 —Movie ad from magazine: Belle of the Yukon, starring Randolph Scott,Gypsey Rose Lee, Dinah Shore and Bob Burns. International Pictures, n.d., color, 13” x 10.5”
21 —Movie ad from magazine: Jack London, starring Michael O’Shea and Susan Hayward. United Artists, [1943], color, 13” x 10.5”
 22 —Movie ad from magazine: Cecil B. DeMille’s North West Mounted Police, starring Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll. Paramount, n.d, 13” x 10.5”
 23 —Stereo card: “Prospectors Returning to Camp, 62 Degrees Below Zero, Alaska.” Keystone View Company, 1899.
 24 —Reprinted magazine: Overland Monthly, Jack London Edition, May 1917.
 25 —Political cartoon on magazine cover: Judge, October 2, 1897. Features bearded figure captioned “Croker” holding a pickax and standing in front of Tammany Hall and City Hall in New York, with the caption: “Had to come back to his Klondike: Getting ready to work the old claim again.”
 26 —Magazine article reprint: American West, March/April 1986 with illustrated article by W. Turrentine Jackson, “By God and Wells Fargo!: Expressmen braved Alaskan wilds to deliver their cargo.”
 27 —Magazine cover: The Popular Magazine, Holiday Number, January 1912. Color image features a fur-hatted mailman on snowshoes delivering a bundle of publications— magazines?—to a waving figure in the doorway of a post office.
 28 —Five-cent weekly magazine: Kit Cummings, The Young Gold Hunter or, Nugget Nell’s Stolen Treasure, part of the Do and Dare series, “A Favorite Weekly of Young America,” New York, February 16, 1901. Color image on cover features winter scene of hero with drawn pistol and faithful dog at his side, sneaking up on unsuspecting bearded bad guy resting on his dogsled. .29—Government publication: Yukon: Land of the Klondike (Canada: Dept. of the Interior, Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch, 1929). Color cover features sternwheeler in Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon River. [transferred to book collection]
 30 —Magazine illustration: “He Did It All / A Few of the Wonders Performed by Magician McKinley, Since His Inauguration,” Puck, October 6, 1897. Color double-page spread with six vignettes, including one of miners digging up gold and toting it away captioned “Everybody knows that the great Klondike boom was brought about by President McKinley,” 13.5” x 19”. [transferred to oversize collection (map cases)]
 31 —Newpaper leaf: San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 1897, pages 1-2. Lead story with four illustrations is headlined “More Men with Gold Won from Frozen Placers / Rush to the Klondyke from all Parts of Alaska / Warning for Those Going North / No Abatement in the Fever about the New Placers / Twenty Men in Berkeley Organize a Company and Will Go to the Yukon to Dig for the Yellow Metal.” Lead story continues to page 2 where there are more gold rush headlines: “Deserting Rich Mines for the New Placers,” “Local Dealers Pay Low Rates for Dust,” “Gold Fever Spreads in San Francisco,” Rush of Travel to the New Field Unchecked,” “Lucky Clarence Berry Finds Life a Burden,” “Canadians Want Favors,” “Off for Klondyke Mines / The Steamer Portland Leaves Seattle / One Hundred and Twenty-eight Passengers—Letters from Dawson,” “Warning Note to Miners,” “More Steamers to Sail,” “Coal Miners Going North,” etc. Other headlines concern the fate of Swedish balloonist S. A. Andree who departed Svalbard for the North Pole on July 11, 1897 and whose fate was not discovered for thirty years. Newsprint, 33” x 16”. [transferred to oversize collection (map cases)]
 32 —Magazine illustration: “From Euston to Klondike: Summit of the Chilkoot Pass / From a sketch by our special artist, Mr. Julius M. Price,” Illustrated London News, August 20, 1898. Color image of men ascending mountain trail, 16” x 11”. 3
 33 —Magazine: Scientific American Supplement, September 11, 1897. Cover story “The Klondike Gold Fields” by H. K. Carroll is illustrated with large photograph: “Departure of the Excelsior, bound for St. Michaels, carrying gold seekers,” and on next page, a winter scene of men “On the summit of Chilkoot Pass.” Also on second page, a map of Alaska. 3 Illustration was used as the frontispiece for Julius M. Price, From Euston to Klondike: the Narrative of a Journey through British Columbia and the North-west Territory in the Summer of 1898 (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1898).
 34 —Magazine illustration: “Christmas in the Klondike—holiday greetings between an ‘El Dorado king’ and a ‘dog-puncher’ on the main street of Dawson / drawn by Tappan Adney,” Harper’s Weekly, n.d. Color, 16” x 11”. 4
 35 —Magazine illustration: “On the Way to Klondike / from photograph by Colonel Domville,” Illustrated London News, March 12, 1898, black & white, 16” x 11”.
 36 —Magazine illustration: “On the Way to Klondike / from photographs by Mr. A.C. Warner, Seattle,” Illustrated London News, March 5, 1898, black & white, 16” x 11”.
 37 —Magazine pages: “News from the Klondike: Letter and illustrations from Tappan Adney, Special Correspondent of ‘Harper’s Weekly’ / Lake Bennett to Dawson,” Harper’s Weekly, August 27, 1898.
 38 —Magazine page: “Cape Nome Beach and Tundra Placer Mines” by George Edward Adams, Harper’s Weekly, n.d. [first page only].
 39 —Mounted photographs: “The First Boat [Corwin] in the spring on the edge of the ice five miles off Nome” and “Nome. For five months in the year Nome can be reached by steamship. Its distance from Seattle is about 2372 miles.” Pencil dated 1912, black & white, each 5” x 7”.
 40 —Lobby card: Charles Ray in The Law of the North, Paramount Pictures, pencil dated 1918, black & tan, 11” x 14”.
 41 —Lobby card: John Wayne, Stewart Granger, Ernie Kovacs, Fabian and Capucine in North to Alaska, Twentieth Century-Fox Film, 1964, black & white with red lettering, 11” x 14”.
 42 —Magazine illustration: “Alaska,” color image of man standing on moving dogsled, swinging his rifle at a pack of hungry wolves attacking his case of Cream of Wheat on the sled, “Painted by N.C. Wyeth for Cream of Wheat Co. 1907,” The Delineator, March 1908, 10” x 7”.
 43 —Sheet music: “Klondike Gold,” supplement to Sunday Examiner, February 13, 1898, words by R. S. Phelps, music by Leo Bruck, written and composed for the San Francisco Examiner, copyright 1898 by W. R. Hearst. Color, 12.5” x 11”.
 44 —Sheet music: “The Face of the Girl I Love” as featured in The Alaskan: An Original Comic Opera, words by Richard F. Carroll, music by Phil Schwartz, Jerome H. Remick & Co., 1909. Illustration on cover by H. C. (?) Chilberg of a winter scene: a figure in fringed buckskin outfit and fur cap, wearing snowshoes, stands next to his dogs hitched to a toboggan-style sled; a round snow igloo with smoke (!) coming out of it is in the background. 5
 45 —Book: Martin Itjen, The Story of the Tour on the Skagway, Alaska Street Car (Skagway?, 1948). First published in 1933 under title Historic and Scenic Views in and around Skagway. [transferred to book collection]
 46 —Souvenir card, folded: “Skagway Street Car / Martin Itjen, Skagway, Alaska.” Photo of Itjen and actress Mae West on front, n.d. 4 The Anchorage Museum owns the original painting from which this illustration was made. Image was also used opposite p. 332 of Tappan Adney, The Klondike Stampede (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900). 5 The complete score for this opera is held by the museum, and by Loussac Library: The Alaskan: An Original Comic Opera, book and lyrics by Joseph Blethen, music by Harry Girard (New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1907). For more about The Alaskan, which was staged in Seattle, see Richard H. Engeman, “The ‘Seattle Spirit’ Meets The Alaskan: A Story of Business, Boosterism, and the Arts,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 81, no. 2 (April 1990), pp. 54-66.
 47 —Postcard: Martin Itjen standing next to “the largest nugget in the world” in Skagway, Asheville Post Card Co., color, n.d.
 48 —Postcard: “77 Oz. Nugget from Chechaco Hill, Alaska,” Portland Post Card Co., color, n.d.
 49 —Postcard: “Soapy Smith Skull, Skagway, Alaska,” color, n.d.
 50 —Postcard: “Shooting White Horse Rapids, Alaska,” Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco, color, n.d.
 51 —Postcard: “Dawson City, Yukon,” Studio North, Whitehorse, color, n.d.
 52 —Alaskan Mexican Gold Mining Company Dividend Warrent
 53 —Book illustration: “Actual size of Alaska’s largest nugget, found by Pioneer Mining Co. on No 5 bench of Discovery Anvil wt 182 oz value $3276.00 Nome Sept. 8 1903.” On verso, “Nome Dairy” [winter scene of buildings buried by snow, fur-clad dairyman with milk cans approaching cow], black & white, 11” x 7 ½”
 54 —Movie poster: White Fang, starring Ethan Hawke, Walt Disney Pictures, [1991], color, 19” x 13” [transferred to oversize collection (map cases)] Three-ring binder with photocopies: Included are copies of magazine pages from the gold rush period with cartoons, articles, and advertisements. There is also a copy of rules for a card game called “Klondike,” a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary entry for the word Klondike, an advertisement for original artwork used for gold rush-themed pulp fiction, ads for Buhach insecticide, an ad for The Yukon Trail education game on CD-ROM, and a magazine ad for the White Pass & Yukon Route. Guide written: October 25, 2012