Historic Glacial Images of Alaska and Greenland

About this collection

This collection comprises 1,940 digitized photographic images from expeditions Cornell professor Ralph Stockman Tarr (1864-1912), his students, and collaborators organized to glaciated areas in Greenland and Alaska. The original photographs and lantern slides are housed in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University in the Ralph Stockman Tarr Papers and the Oscar Diedrich von Engeln Papers. Roughly 90 percent of the photographs in the Ralph Stockman Tarr Papers have been digitized, along with several photographs in the Oscar Diedrich von Engeln Papers. Specifically, there are about 300 photos from the 1896 Peary Expedition to Greenland, including Cornell glacier, which was named during the expedition. There are about 1,300 photographs from expeditions to Alaska in 1905, 1906, 1909, and 1911. Martin made trips to Alaska in 1910 and 1913 without Tarr and some of these images are available at National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks as part of the William O. Field collection. Finally, there are about 300 glacier-related lantern slides used in teaching that were taken during the expeditions; these slides are from other sources.

This digital collection was developed by Aaron Sachs, Cornell Department of History, Matt Pritchard, Cornell Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Julie Elliott of Purdue University in a collaboration funded by the Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. The photographs selected were chiefly chosen for digitization to aid in the study of glacier change and movement over time.

Historical context

Glaciers are a dynamic landform. Photography focusing on glaciers was significant for contributing to early observations and studies of these ice and land forms. The expeditions undertaken in the first two decades of the twentieth century occurred in the larger context of exploration in far northern latitudes, including polar expeditions. Given current climate change, it is interesting to compare these historical photographs with more recent ones to document changes to glaciers over time.

A very few of the photographs were published contemporaneously in scientific publications, including the seminal 498-page book "Alaska Glacier Studies," by Tarr and his Ph.D. student Lawrence Martin, published in 1914 by the National Geographic Society (which funded several of the trips to Alaska). Unfortunately, Tarr died suddenly in 1912 at age 48, and Martin (a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin) moved on to other projects. Thus, many of the photographs have not been otherwise published or cataloged and have only been rarely viewed over the past 100 years.

Using the collection

Users may select to view items from the following geographical areas:

• Alaska
• Canada
• Greenland
• New York

The persistent identifier for this online collection is: http://doi.org/10.7298/X4M61H5R

The suggested citation for this collection is Tarr, Ralph Stockman & Cornell University Library (2014). Historic Glacial Images of Alaska and Greenland from the Ralph Stockman Tarr expeditions (1896; 1905-1911). Cornell University Library. doi.org/10.7298/X4M61H5R

For more information about the collection, please contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.

More information

Collection steward

Patrick J. Stevens, curator in Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

Metadata creation

Cornell University Library

Funding

Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences, awarded to Matt Pritchard, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Aaron Sachs, History; and Julie Elliott (Purdue University) 2014.

Credits

This collection overview last reviewed by Patrick Stevens, curator, in 2025.

Collection sources

• Oscar Diedrich von Engeln Papers
• Ralph Stockman Tarr Papers