Scandinavian Studies: Photographic Collections

Guide to reference sources for Scandinavian studies, including scholarly and popular materials from the Nordic countries

Finding and Paging Photographs

If you want to look at photographs that are not digitized, you will need to visit the archives. In order to see these photographs you will need to know some information about the items, including, the Collection Name, the Collection or Accession Number, and the Box Number.

If, for example, you want to see the print of the Leif Erikson Statue, these are some pieces of information you need to put on a callslip to have the archivists page it for you:

1) Collection Name: August Werner Photographic Collection

2) Collection of Accession Number: PH Coll. No. 0708

3) Box Number: Folder 2/Items 6-13

Learn more about finding Scandinavian materials in Special Collections

People and Places

Equality Colony (Swedish-Americans)
Twenty one photographic prints documenting scenes of daily life at the Equality Colony, including tenants, apartment houses, the sawmill, and printing presses. These photographs were taken at three different periods and were numbered by Peter L. Hegg. (PH Coll. No. 0728)
Herberg Family Collection (Norwegian-Americans)
Includes images of the Norway Day Parade at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE) and a demonstration of a wooden washing machine. (PH Coll. No. 0147)
Kilgren collection (Danish-Americans)
The collection consists of images of Minnie Kilgren and children involved in various activities and organizations, including Danish folk dancing, a Danish church choir, a Danish-American summer school, and the St. John's Danish Lutheran Church. (PH Coll. No. 0669)
Leif Erikson Statue
August Werner's images chronicling his work on the Leif Erikson Statue in Seattle (PH Coll. No. 0708, Folder 2/Items 6-13)
Norwegian-Americans in the Seattle-Tacoma Area
Images of Marie Sherwin, Daughters of Norway, and other members of the Seattle Norwegian-American community. It also includes photos of the Seattle Norwegian Centennial celebration in 1925 at the University of Washington and the original Norway Hall murals. (PH Coll. No. 0726)
Petersen Collection (Danish-Americans)
A collection of images of Elfrida Pedersen, members of the Danish Young People's Society or Dagmar, the Danish Dramatic Club, Harmonien, the Hans Christian Anderson Society and other lodges and societies affiliated with the Danish Brotherhood (not always identified). Most of the images are of theatrical productions or of group portraits of people spanning from the 1920s-1950s. (PH Coll. No. 0435)
Scandinavian Americans in the PNW
The collection documents the lives of individuals of Scandinavian origin in the Pacific Northwest from the 1890s to the 1970s. It focuses specifically on immigrants from Sweden, Norway, and Finland (although it also includes peoples of Icelandic and Danish origin) and the industries they developed, as well as their cultural associations and benefit societies. (PH Coll. No. 0051, in multiple boxes and folders)
Skarstedt Collection (Swedish-Americans)
The collection consists of mounted photographs depicting nature scenes primarily in Oregon, California, and Washington, 1880s-1890s. Several photographs are stamped "Ernst Skarstedt, Photographer," though most are presumed to be taken by Skarstedt. (PH Coll. No. 0533)

Digital Photographic Collections

Parts of many photographic collections have been made available through UW Libraries' Digital Collections. The links below take you directly to some of those collections.

Images from Special Collections

Elfrida Pedersen in costume

August Werner in front of Leif Erikson statue (1962)

Amundsen's ship Gjoa at Nome, AK (1906)

Henry and Inga Kolloen weigh gold (c. 1900)

Equality Colony dining hall (1898)

The Arctic and Explorers

Greenlandic Glaciers
Images of glaciers in Greenland (box 40/folders 18-30), shot in 1964 and 1977. Part of the Austin Post collection. Post (1922-2012) was a self-educated glaciologist and aerial photographer. (PH Coll. No. 0734 , Box 40, Folders 18-30)
Roald Amundsen
Images of Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), including images of the ship Gjoa. (PH Coll. No. 0505)
Walter B. Beals' Album of Roald Amundsen
The album consists of 16 photographs, one letter, and one essay mounted on handmade paper and bound inside leather covers. All but one of the photographs depict polar explorer Roald Amundsen, or one of his means of travel, which include the airship Norge (with which Amundsen flew over the North Pole on his way from Svalbard to Alaska in 1926), and the sailing ships Maud and Gjoa (with which Amundsen became the first man to sail through the Northwest Passage). (PH Coll. No. 0782)

Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush

Kolloen Family Photographs (Norwegian-Americans)
Photos of Henry and Inga Kolloen’s daily life while living in the Dawson area, Yukon Territory, possibly at the Jo Jo Hotel on Gold Run Creek, where they may have also worked. (PH Coll. No. 0731)
Images of the Herberg Family (Norwegian-Americans)
Includes the Norway Day Parade at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE) and a demonstration of a wooden washing machine. (PH Coll. No. 0147)
Erik A. Hegg Photos
Collection consists of images of the Klondike Gold Rush in Alaska and Yukon Territory, ca. 1897-1898. Most show miners, prospectors, and Klondikers on their way to the gold fields or engaged in mining activities. Towns (such as Skagway and Dawson) also appear in the photographs. (PH Coll. No. 0557)

Folk Arts and Regional Costumes

Postcards of costume and textiles from the Nordic Region
See files in PH Coll. No. 0177, Box 5: Denmark (6920.1-.22); Finland (6960.1-.6); Lapland (6912.1-.4); Norway (6940.1-.9); Sweden (6950.1-.35).
Women's Costumes from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden
Blanche Payne (1897-1972), faculty in UW's home economics department collected images of folk dress and regional costumes during travels abroad. Images from Denmark (PH Coll. 0380 boxes B366-B3723), Finland (PH Coll. 0380 boxes 406-407), Norway (PH Coll. 0380 boxes B597-608), and Sweden (PH Coll. No. 0380 box B640-B656) are included in the collection.