Special Collections Hours:

Mon - Fri:
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sat-Sun: Closed

Photograph Collections

Over 60,000 images document the history of the great Central Valley and San Joaquin County, as well as the Mother Lode region, the San Francisco Bay area, and much of California. Photographs cover the period from the Gold Rush to the present, but the majority date from the 1880s to the 1940s.

General Photograph Collection

At the core of Special Collection's photographic collections are images collected and/or taken by V. Covert Martin, John Pitcher Spooner, and many other local and regional photographers. The photographs in the General Photograph Collection are arranged by subject and can be searched on-site only.

Photographs in Manuscript Collections

Many of over 400 manuscript collections include numerous photographs. They cover a wide variety of subjects and a broad range of geographic areas. Photographs in the manuscript collections can be located using Pacific Finding Aids.

Digital Collections

Photographs from some collections have been digitized and are available at our online digital collections web site.