Histories of the American West at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

A sampling of our collections:

• Blackmer (Helen) Papers: Letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, photographs, show flyers, and medicine informational pamphlets belonging to Helen Blackmer (1866–1950), a school teacher and principal who moved from New York to Montana in 1890 and from Montana to Los Angeles by 1935. The letters largely discuss everyday life of white settlers in the American West. 

• Calendar of Montana Papers: A 1943 cataloging project of the Works Progress Administration, this collection of 549 items on Montana history and colonial settlement includes mining claims, legal documents, drawings, and more. 

• Images of Montana and the West (1800–1919): A collection of mostly photographs, some sketches, and one stereographic print of places and people in the Montana and Dakota territories. Images include Teddy Roosevelt (1858–1919) on a hunting trip in the Dakota territories, a Cheyenne camp on the Tongue River, the first train on the Montana Central Railroad, Chief Mi’k ai’stoowa (Red Crow) of the Kainai Tribe (1830–1900), and Calamity Jane (1852–1903). 

• Montana (Anaconda and Butte) Letterhead and Billhead Collection: Letterheads and billheads from businesses in Butte, Montana and Anaconda, Montana from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. 

• Montana Manuscript Collection (1878–1900): This collection of Montana-related ephemera, historical accounts, photographs, and newspaper clippings was originally assembled by Charles Nickolas Kessler (1874–1957), president of the Kessler Brewing Company and vocal anti-prohibitionist. 

• Palé (George) Collection of Photographic Slides (ca. 1944–1965): 35mm color slides taken by George John Palé (1916–1973) to document his World War II service and postwar family life in Arizona. Palé’s mother, Martha, was a housekeeper for William Andrews Clark, Jr. in Los Angeles, and Palé was the beneficiary of the largest amount from the Clark estate.

Items include:

• Map of mining claims, Butte and vicinity, Montana (1916): A colored, geographic map compiled and published by Harper, Macdonald & Co. 

• Maps of automobile roads from Helena to Missoula, Helena to Bozeman, and Helena to Great Falls (ca. 1920): Maps published by the Helena Commercial Club.

• Montana: exhibit at the World’s Fair and a description of the various resources of the state: mining, agricultural, and stock-growing (Butte, Montana: Butte Inter Mountain Print, 1893): Book about Montana’s exhibit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. 

• Montana Through the Stereoscope (ca. 1908): Dozens of stereoscopic prints published by N.A. Forsyth in Butte, Montana depicting families and rituals on the Flathead Reservation, buffalo roundups on ranches, and the Northern Pacific Railway. The Clark Library also has a stereoscope from this period with which to view the prints.

• The Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Montana (1866): Montana freemason journals from 1880, 1881, 1890, and 1909.

To find pamphlets, printed books, maps, pictorial works, and manuscripts go to UC Library Search. Click on “Advanced Search,” select the Subject field, and type either “Montana,” “Montana – Butte,” “Montana – History,” “Montana – Maps,” “Montana – Pictorial works,” or “Montana – Description and travel.” You can also do a keyword search either in the simple search or in the “Any field” field of the Advanced Search. Once you have search results, you can limit to the Clark Library by selecting it from the “UCLA Locations” facet. 

For detailed inventories of archival collections related to Montana see “Montana (Calendar of Papers 1833-1932),” “Montana Manuscript Collection 1878-1990,” “Montana (Anaconda and Butte) Letterhead and Billhead Collection,” “Images of Montana and the West 1800-1919,” “McManus Family Trunk Collection about 1890-1997,” “Clark (William Andrews, Jr.) and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Records 1878-2022,” “Clark (William Andrews) Memorial Library Institutional Archive,” and “Western Books Exhibition Collection 1938-2005” in the Clark Library's page on the Online Archive of California (OAC).