The J. Paul Getty Trust’s Union List of Artist’s Names used by the NYPL Photographers’ Identities Catalog is in need of corrections.

The New York Public Library’s Photographer’s Identities Catalog (PIC) website PIC – Photographers’ Identities Catalog states:

“Photographers’ Identities Catalog is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more, PIC is a vast and growing resource for the historian, student, genealogist, or any lover of photography’s history. The information has been culled from trusted biographical dictionaries, catalogs and databases, and from extensive original research by NYPL Photography Collection staff.”

Some problems with the PIC entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon:

As stated, the PIC relies on “trusted” information from a number of published sources, but the source about Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon, The Union List of Artist’s Names (ULAN) published online by the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, has a number of factual errors in need of correction, and lacks bibliographic entries of substance about their photography.

Alice Dixon Le Plongeon- ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)

Augustus Le Plongeon- ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)

The biographical “Note” in the ULAN entry is used for both Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon: “British, of French origins; later lived in America. Augustus worked with his wife Alice, photographing local people and archeological sites, including St.Thomas, Tiahuanaco, and Chichén Itzá.”

An update and corrections to the ULAN biographical note:

1) Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910) was born in London, and had no French origins. Augustus Le Plongeon (1826-1908) was born on the Island of Jersey to French parents.

2) Both Augustus and Alice were trained photographers. Alice learned photography from her father Henry Dixon, a noted London photographer, and Augustus learned photography from the English photographer Fox Talbot. He began practicing photography in the 1850s in San Francisco, California.

3) Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon first met in London in 1871, and were married in New York City before leaving for Yucatán in 1873 to carry out archaeological and photographic projects. Alice did not accompany Augustus on photographic expeditions to the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean or Tiahuanaco, Peru in the 1860s.

4) From 1873 to 1884, the Le Plongeons photographed Maya archaeological sites, ethnographic subjects, made portraits of native peoples and colonialists, landscapes, flora and fauna, and Colonial architecture in Yucatán, Mexico, and British Honduras (Belize).

5) Recently accessed archival materials indicate Alice was behind the camera as much as Augustus, if not more, and was responsible for the processing of their wet collodion glass negatives, and prints.

6) More than 2,500 negatives and prints made by the Le Plongeons are currently archived in public institutions, and private collections.

It should be noted about two years ago the administrator of Getty’s ULAN stated they planned to correct the entry for the Le Plongeons. It was to be based on the Getty Research Institute’s short biographical entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon that can be found in its Finding Aid. The update has yet to be made to the web page, so it was thought prudent to publish this post until corrections are made.

In the meanwhile, for an excellent biographical summary of the Le Plongeons’ lives and work in archaeology and photography consult the Getty Research Institute’s Finding Aid for the Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon collection of photographs and other archival materials. Getty Research Institute: INVENTORY OF THE AUGUSTUS AND ALICE DIXON LE PLONGEON PAPERS, circa 1840-1937, bulk 1860-1910 Le Plongeon (Augustus and Alice Dixon) papers

Additionally, the Wikipedia entries for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon are also an excellent summary.

Alice Dixon Le Plongeon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Augustus Le Plongeon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For addition background on the Le Plongeon just enter the ArchaeoPlanet Le Plongeon Archive by clicking on the sidebar.

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Catalog of the 19th century photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon now available in spreadsheet format

Background

Bart Anderson, journalist and computer specialist, saw the need for faster access to the data entries for the 1,037 photos in the Catalog of the 19^th century photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon.

While the catalog was published as a book and PDF with an introduction that gives background about each collection, historical context, catalog organization, and other technical information Anderson noted considerable time was required to search the photo collections.

The catalog photo entries had been created as a Word document by Desmond. Anderson then took the Word file and converted it into a CSV file that is compatible with most spreadsheet and database programs, and then into an Excel file for use here. Unfortunately WordPress does not support CVS files. Email me, and I can send a copy of the file.

The Excel file is free for download, and while it retains the copyright of Lawrence G. Desmond, it is authorized for use for research purposes. The Excel file is about 300 Kb.

Catalog Organization and Materials Description

NOTE: For a complete introduction to the catalog of collections refer to the book:

A Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon

The catalog is subdivided into five collections. Each photographic item in a collection has been cataloged using a data entry card with the fields as listed below.

Collections

American Museum of Natural History (AM)

Donald Dixon Photo Album (DA)

Getty Research Institute (GRI)

Peabody Museum at Harvard University (PM)

Philosophical Research Society (PRS)

Other fields

Catalog number: # 17

Museum photo identification number: PM-P2500F

Subject:

Archaeological Site

Artifact

Biological

Document

Drawing

Ethnographic

European exploration

Geological

Henry Dixon

Painting

Portrait

View

Medium:

Lantern slide

Print or Tracing

Negative

Type:

Albumen

Collodio-chloride printing-out paper

Dry glass-plate

Gelatin glass-plate

Wet collodion glass-plate

Stereo:  Yes or No

Size:  4 x 8 Inches

Description:

Upper Temple of the Jaguars.

Entrance to inner temple, south pilaster, north façade, K-8, bas relief.  [Any recognizable person in a photo is identified]

Cross Reference:

X Ref: PM-P2500F

or

X Ref: PM-P2500F similar

The Cross Reference field gives the catalog numbers of identical or similar photos in other collections. Similar photos are defined as having the same subject matter, but they were taken at a slightly different angle or time of day from the same camera position. The differences between similar photos are often subtle and hardly noticeable at first viewing.

When the Cross Reference field does not list an identical photo in another collection that indicates that the photographic item is unique to that collection.

Note for Excel users: Under the column titled “Description” — the cell is to short to view the text for item numbers 34, 190, and 960. Excel has entered a string of ##### rather than the text. To view the texts simply double click within the cell.

Professor José Cuellar to play ancient ocarinas at Harvard University

Emeritus San Francisco State University Professor José Cuellar, aka Dr. Loco, and leader of Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeño Band.

José Cuellar, Professor Emeritus of Latina/Latino Studies at San Francisco State University, a noted saxophone player and nicknamed “Dr. Loco” because he leads the musical group called Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, will be playing ancient ocarinas from Central and Mesoamerica at Harvard University’s Geological Lecture Hall at 6pm on March 31. Admission is free and open to the public. Better get there early!

Thanks to Professor Davíd Carrasco, director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project at Harvard, and Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, “Dr. Loco” will be playing a variety of ocarinas made by the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America. They were discovered by archaeologists who call them “artifacts,” but for Professor Cuellar they are wonderful musical instruments.

Performance: Dr. Loco will be playing the ocarinas at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts on March 31 at 6pm. The performance is free and open to the public.

For additional details, here is the link to the Peabody Museum’s web announcement of the performance, and a museum exhibit of the ocarinas. Reviving the Ancient Sounds of Mesoamerican Ocarinas | Peabody Museum

California Water Usage Warning

I agree, this has little or nothing to do with archaeology, but I wanted to share an amusing moment as we drove through a downpour, windshield wipers on full blast, on the way to SFO a couple days ago. Give us more…

Sign on Interstate 280 during an unexpected rain storm near the San Francisco International Airport.

Free download- A Searchable Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon

Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, rifle, guitar, and photographic equipment. Governor’s Palace, Uxmal, Yucatán. Selfie-1876. Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program.

A Searchable Catalog of the 19th century photos of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon.  2.5Mb

This searchable 363 page catalog of more than one thousand photographs taken in Yucatán, and Belize in the 19^th century by Alice Dixon Le Plongeon and Augustus Le Plongeon is from the book A Catalog of the 19^th century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon (printed by Blurb in 2015). This PDF was made available because the PDF from Blurb (printer of the entire book-catalog) is about 90MB, and is not searchable.

For researchers in need of additional information, the book includes a Preface, Acknowledgements, and Introduction with considerable current and historical background on the five collections of Le Plongeon photographs, the photographic methods of the Le Plongeons, and how the photos in five collections were duplicated and cataloged.

The downloaded Searchable Catalog is free, and with no copyright restrictions for scholarly use.

New Book– A Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon

Alice Dixon Le Plongeon. Governor’s Palace, Uxmal, Yucatán. Selfie-1876. Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program.
http://www.blurb.com/b/6134743-a-catalog-of-the-19th-century-photographs-of-alice

This book by Lawrence G. Desmond is a catalog of 1,034 photographs taken by Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon in Yucatán, Mexico, and Belize from 1873 to 1885. Some of the photos are the first taken of Maya archaeological sites in Yucatán, and of the people of Yucatán during the 19th century.

The subjects in the photo are: Landscapes, Colonial and Ancient Maya Architecture, Portraits, and Ethnographic photos. The original photos are archived at: The American Museum of Natural History, the Donald Dixon album in London, the Getty Research Institute, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, uplicates of the original photos were made with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RT-20746). The duplicates can be viewed at the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the “Lawrence G. Desmond collection of Augustus Le Plongeon and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon Photographs.” Collection ID number: 5268.

To purchase a copy of the catalog as hardcopy, a PDF or just view all the pages go online to the web site of Blurb. Click on the link under the cover photo to go directly to the Catalog at the Blurb web site and view all the pages.

A doctoral dissertation to note: “Invasores, exploradores y viajeros: la vida cotidiana en Yucatán desde la óptica del otro, 1834-1906”

Title page of doctoral dissertation.

Lorena Careaga V.

A new doctoral dissertation of note: “Invaders, explorers and travelers: Everyday life in Yucatán from another perspective, 1834-1906” by Dr. Lorena Careaga. Careaga, a professor and director of the library at the Universidad del Caribe in Yucatán, recently completed a multi-year study of how life was lived in Yucatán, Mexico during the Caste War that pitted the Maya against the central government of Mexico for more than a half century.

Bibliographic reference:

Lorena Careaga, “Invasores, exploradores y viajeros: la vida cotidiana en Yucatán desde la óptica del otro, 1834-1906” [“Invaders, explorers and travelers: Everyday life in Yucatán from another perspective, 1834-1906”], Ph.D. Dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, México, February 2015.

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation summarizes and critically reviews the life and work of 30 men and 3 women from outside of Mexico who traveled through Yucatán between 1834 and 1906 as explorers, expeditionary photographers, war correspondents, mercenaries, government representatives, military officers, merchants, artists and naturalists, and who left published accounts of their travels, as well as their personal appraisal of everyday life during the revolt of the Maya against the government of Mexico called the Caste War of Yucatán. The dissertation also assesses the contribution of nineteenth century travelers in Yucatán to the then developing fields of archaeology, anthropology with special emphasis on Maya ethnography.

While there are numerous studies about nineteenth century foreign travelers to Mexico, in the case of the Yucatán Peninsula this dissertation fills two important research gaps. The first is travelers’ reports of everyday life in general, and in particular, how life was lived during the Caste War while under a permanent threat of attack. Analyzed and placed in historical context are travelers’ first hand descriptions of everyday life in times of conflict, and the effects of warfare on Yucatecan life.

Secondly, most bibliographic compilations list only fifteen foreign travelers to the Yucatán Peninsula from 1834 to 1906. Some important observers were left out because their theories and opinions were considered unacceptable, and others were overlooked because their writings were not translated. This dissertation presents a comprehensive and systematic study of all thirty-three foreign travelers.

Finally, Careaga compares and contrasts photographs, drawings, maps, engravings, vocabularies, and other documentary materials produced by travelers, explorers, and expeditionary photographers, and assesses their contribution to our knowledge of life in Yucatán during this period of revolutionary conflict.