Historic Photograph Collections

William H. Burton photographs, c. 1912-1940s

Collection number: PH006

Extent: 6 linear ft. (X containers)

Abstract

William H. Burton was an educator and amateur photographer who lived on the Oregon coast and attended the University of Oregon 1912-1915. The collection consists of photographs primarily of the vicinity of Newport, Oregon, the University of Oregon campus and student activities, and New York City.

Image shown: "Off the track," Burton's colleagues extricating a Studebaker, en route from Siletz to Newport before there were roads. Photo by William H. Burton, undated. William H. Burton photographs, PH006-067, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1299.

Preferred citation: [Identification of item], William H. Burton photographs, PH006-[item number], Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1299.

Biographical Sketch

William H. Burton (1890-1964) was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1890 to George Charles and Agnes Ann Burton. He attended Hill Military, Portland Academy, and the Oregon Normal School. During the years 1912-1915 he was a reporter for the Portland Journal; in later years he contributed to the Oregon Journal and Yaquina Bay News. Burton reportedly graduated from the University of Oregon in 1915 but is not listed in the yearbook.

He received a master's in education at Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. Burton was the author of several text books on education. He taught at rural elementary and secondary schools in Oregon, and then went on to teach at institutions of higher education including Washington State University at Pullman, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Chicago, University of Southern California, and Harvard University, where he was director of apprenticeship of the graduate school of education. Burton retired to Oregon in 1955 and taught at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. He married Virginia Lee Nottingham in 1920, and had at least two sisters.

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of 549 glass and nitrate negatives, 61 prints, and two albums. The first is an album of views of the University of Oregon, 1912-1916, showing campus buildings, student activities including the Canoe Fete and the bonfire, a football game against Oregon Agricultural College, baseball, track, women's field hockey and tennis, pageants, and a women's chemistry class. The second album documents Burton's Siletz auto trip of 1912, and includes an advertising flyer from the White Star Line. The negatives primarily show the Newport coast area (many of these images may be by Fred Sassman), New York City, and some from Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. There is a series of images documenting construction of the Roosevelt Highway (101) along the Oregon Coast.

Related materials

The University of Oregon album was formerly kept in the Manuscript collection as Ca B957. An album of photographs of Columbia University was transferred to the Columbiana Collection at Columbia in 1966. A group of books, primarily educational readers, was incorporated into the Libraries' collection. The Siletz trip was published as Pathfinder: the first automobile trip from Newport to Siletz Bay, Oregon, July, 1912,

Newport, Or.: Lincoln County Historical Society, c1975

Ownership

Publication rights: Property rights reside with Special Collections and University Archives. Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs. All requests for permission to publish images must be submitted to the Photographs Curator of Special Collections and University Archives. The reader must also obtain permission of the copyright holder.

Access restrictions: None.

Provenance: The collection was donated by Mrs. William Burton in May 1966.

Processed by: Normandy S. Helmer/Megan Dazey

Date Completed: August 2005