Photo Album Compiled by Annabel Johnson, an Alaskan Native Student at the Sheldon Jackson School

Sitka, Alaska: 1932-1936. Black string tied photo album binding measuring 8 x 6”, containing 143 black and white photos cornered in, many accompanied by captions on the album leaves or on the backs of the photos. A photo album compiled by Annabel Jones, an Alaskan Native student at the Sheldon Jackson School in Sitka, Alaska. Founded in 1882 as an industrial training school for Alaskan Native boys, the school later became coeducational, while enforcing strict gender segregation. At the turn of the century, parents were forced to “indenture” their children to the school for a period of five years, and students could be forcibly brought to the school, which was meant to Westernize the students and strip them of their traditional ways of life. Sheldon Jackson was the only high school in the area that Alaskan Natives were allowed to attend, until the desegregation of Sitka High School in 1949.

According to the 1920 census, Annabel Johnson was a member of the Frank family, a Haida family living in Ketchikan, Alaska. A number of the photos in the album depict members of the Frank family, particularly the young children, several of whom identified on the backs. The majority of the album, though documents Johnson’s time at the school between 1932 and 1936. She was part of a tight knit group of female friends—Olive, Capt, Sarah John, Sadie, Chatham, etc. Their close ties are apparent in the many images of them posed together, some playfully captioned. Other images include group photos of students and school officers, as well as depictions of school buildings, the band, a class picnic, a field day, ice skating, an excursion to Steamboat Bay, students on boats (boat-building was part of the curriculum), and more. Soiling to album leaves, some images missing, fading to many of the ink captions making them unreadable or hard to read, fading to a number of images which are generally legible, more severe fading to a few images. Item #15283

Price: $3,250.00