AHS Blog
New Addition to the Eyewitness Booklet Series
Chris Allan has completed the sixth booklet in his “Eyewitness Series.” Eyewitness Series #6: In the Shadow of Eagle Bluff: A Pictorial History of the U.S. Army’s Fort Egbert at Eagle, Alaska, 1899-1902 is a collection of photographs, maps, and soldiers’ letters showing the evolution of a frontier outpost along the Yukon River.
All six booklets ae available on the Alaska Historical Society’s website.
Chris’s intent with these booklets is to showcase voices of the past: “I wanted to get away from the traditional historian’s narrative form where primary sources play a secondary or tertiary role behind the historian’s voice and analysis. I like the idea of people hearing history from the eyewitnesses. In each case, I was so impressed with what was available in digitized newspapers that I wanted to share it.” His booklet about mining operations at Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek does the same as the others but allows photographers from the 1930s to tell the story. Each booklet includes advertisements, early maps, paintings, drawings and photographs previously unpublished or never collected in the same place.
