By Finding aid prepared by Elizabeth Nielsen.
Title: Sydney Trask Photograph Collection, 1871-1932
Predominant Dates: circa 1890-1920
ID: P 096
Primary Creator: Trask, Sydney
Extent: 1.8 cubic feet. More info below.
Arrangement: The collection consists of one series: I. Sydney Trask Photographs. All of the images have been assigned individual item numbers (P096:001 thru P096:255).
Languages of Materials: English [eng]
This personal collection of photographs taken (and assembled) by Sydney Trask includes many notable images from the 1890s through 1910s of Oregon Agricultural College buildings, campus views, classrooms, and laboratories. Trask attended Oregon Agricultural College in 1894-1896. Before coming to Corvallis in 1894, he was a photographer for the railroad in eastern Oregon; in the late 1890s, he had a photographic studio in Corvallis.
Images from this collection have been digitized and are available in Oregon Digital.
The Sydney Trask Photograph Collection consists of images created and assembled by Trask and includes many notable images of Oregon Agricultural College buildings, campus views, classrooms, and laboratories during the 1890s thru 1910s. Images documenting instruction in engineering, home economics, industrial arts, photography, and agriculture as well as student activities and clubs including the Camera Club, band, military reviews, and literary societies are part of the collection. The collection also includes images of Corvallis businesses and structures such as the Carriage Factory, J.H. Harris General Store, the Benton County National Bank, and the Benton County Courthouse.
The collection includes 247 negatives and 182 prints. Most of the negatives are glass plates ranging in size from 4x5 to 8x10 inches. The bulk of the glass negatives (~200) are 8x10, 6.5x8.5, or 5x8 in plates. The collection also includes 25 nitrate negatives. Most of the prints in the collection have accompanying camera negatives; only about 25 prints do not have negatives in the collection. About half of the negatives (~120) do not have accompanying prints. Some prints that had been described previously as part of Harriet's Photograph Collection have been transferred into this collection. Prints in the collection are housed in Boxes 01, 15, and 16; glass negatives are housed in Boxes 02 through 13. Broken glass negatives are stored separately in Box 17.
Images from this collection have been digitized and are available in Oregon Digital.
Sydney Trask attended Oregon Agricultural College for 2 academic years (1894/95 and 1895/96). The first year he studied the agricultural course and the second year the mechanical. He married Josephine A. (Josie) Moses in 1898. For the first few years following their marriage, they lived in several different Willamette Valley towns but returned to Corvallis where Trask was a businessman.
Before coming to Corvallis in about 1894, Trask had worked as a photographer for the railroad in eastern Oregon. S. E. Trask and Co. had a photographic studio "over the Post Office" [imprint on P096:250] in Corvallis probably during the late 1890s.
Trask was born in 1878 in Rockford, Illinois. As a boy he moved with his parents to Cascade Locks (Wasco County), Oregon. He moved to Pasadena, California, in late 1955 to be near his son and died there on 13 January 1956.
More Extent Information: 429 photographs; 17 boxes, including 2 oversize boxes
Statement on Access: Collection is open for research.
Acquisition Note: The bulk of the collection was acquired by the University Archives in the 1960s.
Related Materials: Many other photographs of campus buildings are available in the Buildings Photographic Collection (P 016) and Harriet's Photograph Collection (P HC). Additional photographs of home economics and engineering classrooms and laboratories are part of Harriet's Photograph Collection, the College of Home Economics Photograph Collection (P 044), and the College of Engineering Photograph Collection (P 069).
Preferred Citation: Sydney Trask Photograph Collection (P 096), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Trask, Sydney
Agricultural education--Oregon--Corvallis.
College buildings--Oregon--Corvallis.
Corvallis (Or.)
Engineering--Study and teaching (Higher)--Oregon--Corvallis.
Home economics--Study and teaching--Oregon--Corvallis.
Local History
Military education--Oregon--Corvallis.
Oregon Agricultural College--Buildings.
Oregon Agricultural College--Faculty.
Oregon Agricultural College--Students.
Photography--Study and teaching (Higher)--Oregon--Corvallis.
Student activities--Oregon--Corvallis.
Trask, Sydney
University History
Glass plate negatives.
Nitrate negatives.
Photographic prints.