Title: Frederick Bennett Wright Collection, 1893-1905, n.d.

ID: RG 30/412

Extent: 0.4 Linear Feet

Frederick Bennett Wright (1873-1922) was the son of George Frederick and Hulda Maria (Day) Wright, born in Andover, Massachusetts on November 4, 1873. His father had received both his A.B. and theological degree at Oberlin College, and returned to the Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1881 as Professor of New Testament Language and Literature. George and Hulda Wright had four children, all Oberlin graduates. Frederick Bennett Wright enrolled at Oberlin in 1893, and graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in 1897. For two years after graduation he was enrolled as a graduate student in geology at Johns Hopkins University, and during this time was a student observer for the U.S. Weather Bureau and was also connected with the Maryland Geological Survey.

In 1900-1901 Frederick Bennett Wright accompanied his father on a trip across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, his father’s most ambitious voyage among several with the purpose of making firsthand observation of geological conditions. The elder Wright was assisted by his son in the work of producing a two-volume work entitled Asiatic Russia published in 1902. In the author’s preface, George Frederick Wright credits his son Frederick for most of the photographs that appear in the publication, as well as the chapter on climate and assistance in preparing the chapter on flora and fauna.

George Frederick Wright was Assistant Editor for the archeology journal Records of the Past, published by its parent organization Records of the Past Exploration Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., from its creation in 1901 until 1903. He was Editor-in-Chief with his son Frederick as Assistant Editor from 1903 until 1911, when he was listed as Editor Emeritus while Frederick ascended to the Editorship. Frederick’s sister Helen M. Wright, a 1902 graduate of Oberlin, was listed as Assistant Editor in 1911-1913. Frederick Bennett Wright authored several articles for Records of the Past, including “The Ming Tombs,” April 1902; “Ancient Samarkand,” September 1902; “The Mastodon and Mammoth Contemporary with Man,” August 1903, and “Ancient Caravan Routes of China,” June 1904. In 1914 Records of the Past merged with Art and Archeology, and at that point the Wright editorship ceased.

Frederick Bennett Wright married Sarah Ann Carrick in 1907; together they had five children. In 1915 Wright became a lecturer for the National Homecrofter’s Society. In 1916-1917 Frederick was a free-lance lecturer and manufacturer of educational sets of lantern slides, an indication of his continuing interest in photography. From 1918 to 1922 he was engaged in Y.M.C.A. educational work at Camp Humphreys, Virginia, and at Walter Reed Hospital.

Frederick Bennett Wright died of pneumonia on December 12, 1922.

SOURCES CONSULTED

The student files of Frederick Bennett Wright and Helen M. Wright (RG 28).

Finding Guide for the George Frederick Wright Papers, RG 30/21.

Records of the Past Exploration Society, Records of the Past, volumes 1-7, 10-12, accessed from the Harvard University Open Collections Program, “Expeditions and Discoveries,” http://fig.lib.harvard.edu/fig/?bib=000132553, 3/17/2011.

George Frederick Wright, Asiatic Russia, Volumes I and II. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902.

Author: Anne Cuyler Salsich

Forms of Material (links to similar genres)

Languages of Materials

Administrative Information

Scope and Contents:

The Frederick Bennett Wright Collection consists primarily of photographs taken in Russian and the Far East ca. 1900-1901, some of which appear in the two-volume work Asiatic Russia, 1902, authored in Oberlin by his father George Frederick Wright and with a chapter by the younger Wright. Some of the photographs appear in articles written by Frederick Bennett Wright for issues of the periodical Records of the Past in the early 1900s. F.B. Wright is presumed to be the photographer for the collection, since his father credited him for their production in his preface to Asiatic Russia.

Textual material in the collection comprises offprints of articles, an undated typescript, a printed statement made by Frederick Bennett Wright to the Supreme Court, and print outs of articles by Wright from an online source for the journal Records of the Past.

The collection has been organized into two series: Photographs and Writings.

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Series I. Photographs, 1893, ca. 1900-1901 (0.34 l.f.)

Series I comprises one hundred and fifty-nine photographic prints, all but three in 6 ¼” x 8 ¼” format. These cover images of Russia, Siberia, China, Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria from the early years of the 1900s. All of these have printed labels affixed to the backs carrying a unique 4-digit number, a place name, short caption, and the credit line “Records of the Past Exploration Society, 215 3^rd Ave., Washington, D.C.” Two prints taken in Russia and Manchuria are in different papers and sizes, and do not have the printed labels; inscriptions in ink appear on the backs identifying their subjects. A cabinet card portrait of Frederick Bennett Wright taken in 1893 by a Cleveland photographer is included in the series.

Series II. Writings, 1896, 1902-1905, n.d. (0.06 l.f.)

One typed essay on music in Minusinsk, Russia accompanied the photographs. It was not signed but the name “Miss Helen Wright” (Frederick Bennett Wright’s sister) appears in pencil on the back. This comprises the only manuscript material in the collection. It may have been authored by George Frederick Wright for his book Asiatic Russia, in which Minusinsk is discussed in several different chapters.

Three articles by Frederick Bennett Wright published in the journal Records of the Past in 1902 and 1904 were printed from a library collection online. These articles relate to or have illustrations from the photographs in the collection. An original offprint of his article “The Mastodon and Mammoth Contemporary with Man,” with an attached business card from Wright as Assistant Editor of Records of the Past was transferred from the Oberlin College Library Special Collections Department. Also from Special Collections are two additional printed items, one being an offprint of an article by Frederick Bennett Wright entitled “The Origin of the Wind Gap,” this time from the American Geologist, 1896, the year before his graduation from Oberlin. The other item is a statement for the Supreme Court dated 18 January 1905 that refutes statements made in a circular by the former editor of Records of the Past, Rev. Henry Mason Baum.

INVENTORY

Series I. Photographs, 1893, ca. 1900-1901 (0.34 l.f.)

Box 1

Portrait (cabinet card) of Frederick Bennett

Wright, 1893

Photographs (156, black-and-white) labeled

by the Records of the Past Exploration

Society, 6 ¼” x 8 ¼”, ca. 1900-01

Russia and Trans-Caspia

Manchuria & Mongolia

Northern China

Turkestan

Siberia

Photographs without labels (2, black-and-white),

ca. 1900-01

Cossacks, Tieling, Manchuria (4 3/8” x 6 ¼”)

Greek church, Russia (6 ¾” x 9”)

Series II. Writings, 1896, 1902-1905, n.d. (0.06 l.f.)

Box 1 (cont.)

Typescript (one page) on music in Minusinsk,

Russia, n.d.

Frederick Bennett Wright, “The Origin of the Wind

Gap,” The American Geologist, Vol. XVIII,

August 1896 (offprint)

Articles by Frederick Bennett Wright in Records

of the Past

“The Ming Tombs,” Vol. I, Part IV, April 1902

“Ancient Samarkand,” Vol. I, Part IX,

September 1902

“The Mastodon and Mammoth Contemporary

with Man,” Vol. II, Part VIII, August

1903 (offprint).

“Ancient Caravan Routes of China,” Vol. III,

Part VI, June 1904

“Replying to Dr. Baum’s Circular of Dec. 5 and the Notice

Appended to the Prospectus of the Institute of

Historical Research …,” statement made to the

Clerk of the Supreme Court by Frederick Bennett

Wright on January 18, 1905

Item-level inventory of labeled photographs by Frederick Bennett Wright

Negative numbers and information were transcribed from labels pasted to the back sides.

Mongolia (1)

1495 Han Oor – towers of Chinese wall on Mongolian border

Trans-Caspia (1)

1365 Krasnovodsk – veiled woman

Northern China (32)

1396 Chee Foo [Chefoo] – Chee Foo from the Presbyterian Mission

1397 Chee Foo [Chefoo] – view from Presbyterian Mission

1399 Chee Foo [Chefoo] – low tide

1419 Great Caravan Route – man drawing water for the mules

on the road halfway from Peking to Kalgan

1450 Ming tombs – pack mule

1451 Ming tombs – Pailow – Triple Gate

1452 Ming tombs – old bridge on the way up to

1453 Ming tombs – detail of carving on marble - Pailow

1455 Ming tombs – donkey with stone roller

1457 Ming tombs – elephant standing (statue)

1461 Ming tombs – statue of military man, approach to

1462 Ming tombs – row of animalas, Chi-Ling

1463 Ming tombs – row of animals, horse

1467 Ming tombs – farming scenes near – donkeys and drag

1468 Ming tombs – oxen and drag

1469 Ming tombs – Chinese wooden plow

1470 Ming tombs – carrying vegetables

1472 Ming tombs – entrance to Yung Low’s tomb

1475 Ming tombs – tablet hall of Yung Low – rear view

1477 Ming tombs – boulders in dry bed of stream crossed

on way to tombs

1479 Nan Kan – camels in an inn yard

1490 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – brick yard

1492 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – Fold in strata, Castle Rock

1496 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – single tower and part of wall

1504 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – A Mongol house above

1511 Shi-wan-tse [Shiwan?] – upper end of Northern China

1514 Kalgan {Zhangjiakou] – carts

1515 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – entrance to Glen Gulick

1518 Ming Tombs – tilted strata S.W. of

1521 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – Chinese carpenter

1522 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – Chinese carpenter sawing

1529 Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] – Typical valley on Mongolian

frontier near Kalgan

Manchuria (21)

1534 Teiling [Tieling] – Russian compound

1535 Teiling [Tieling] – Russian buildings

1536 Teiling [Tieling] – Russian Chief Engineer’s house

1539 Teiling [Tieling] – Russian tarantass

1544 Teiling [Tieling] – coolies on the railroad embankment

1547 Teiling [Tieling] – two Cassocks of the Don

1549 Three Cossack guards

1550 Chinese plow and Mongolian horse

1552 Northern Manchurian town

1556 Schala-Ho – ferry on the

1559 Teiling [Tieling] – drawing telegraph poles for the

Chinese Eastern Railroad

1560 Lao-sha-ku – railroad ties being loaded by Chinese

1565 Lao-sha-ku – banks of the Sungari [Songhua] at – are low

1566 Lao-sha-ku – box car on Chinese Eastern Railroad

1567 Korforskai – general station and engineer’s house

1568 Harbin – railroad station at

1569 Harbin – hotel in 1900 (back view)

1591 Now-mo-dui – interior of a Russian Cossack’s room

in the permanent barracks

1592 Now-mo-dui – caravan leaving

1596 Sangari [Songhua] River – Russian steamer

4353 Port Arthur [Lushun] – signing the treaty for the

Chinese Easter Railroad

Siberia (55)

448 Amoor [Amur] River - crowd of women at the landing at

Ennokepgebskoy

460 Amoor [Amur] River – open tarantass

488 Amoor [Amur] River – peasant woman on shore

491 Amoor [Amur] River – Russian travelers cooking while

steamer is taking on wood

495 Amoor [Amur] River – Russian children on board

a river steamer

503 Blagoveysehensk [Blagoveshchensk] – Chinese town

20 miles west of – being burned by the Russians in 1900

574 Town 120 miles below Stretensk

616 Amoor [Amur] River – steamer at Ignaschera

620 Ignascheva – ruins of Chinese village

627 Amoor [Amur] River – near the head of the river

667 Amoor [Amur] River

691 Amoor [Amur] River – pushing steamer off the bar

701 Siberia

702 Shilka River – 3 children at steamer landing

704 Shilka River – man holding his little girl

726 Chita – dogs

740 Chita – part of a market

779 Siberia – Lake Baikal

784 Lake Baikal – beggar and man in a cart

786 Lake Baikal – peasants on steamer crossing the lake

837 Irkontsk [Irkutsk] – women in the market

838 Irkutsk – market, cucumbers for sale

839 Irkutsk – bread for sale in market

866 Irkutsk – washing on the Angara, monastery in distance

874 Irkutsk – soldiers drilling

923 Krasnoyarsk – railroad bridge

928 Yenisei River – raft

934 Yenisei River – rocks and cliffs 8 miles above

Krasnoyarsk

944 Yenisei River – captain of river steamer

962 Minusinsk – washing black wool at river

975 Minusinsk – washing black wool in the river

991 Omsk – looking up the Om River

1026 Irtish [Irtysh] River

1029 Irtish [Irtysh] River – little girl and baby

1039 Pavlodara [Pavlodar] – post station and tarantass

1056 Semipalatinsk [Semey]

1058 Semipalatinsk [Semey] – 2 boys (Tartar)

1061 Semipalatinsk [Semey] – interior Post house

1110 Peschpek [Bishkek]

1115 Semipalatinsk [Semey] – fastening sheep

1117 Post road to Tashkend [Tashkent] – sheep

1121 Post road – Russian boy and girl on donkeys

1123 Camels at town of Baskanskoy

1125 Baskanskoy – sleighs parked for summer

1128 Post road – Tartar camp where millet has been sifted

1134 Post station beyond Kopal [Kapal]

1145 Greasing the wheels of a tarantass – Post road

1179 Vernui, mountains

1204 Aulieata [Aulie-Ata] – Tartar boy

1207 Morning scene at an inn a Aulieatu [Aulie-Ata] – Tartars

4362a Vladivostock [Vladivostok]

4640 Lake Baikal

4641 Baikal – Lake

4359 Vladivostock [Vladivostok] – panorama no. 2

4360 Vladivostock [Vladivostok] – panorama of harbor in 1900 no. 3

Russia (13)

1352 Baku – street of oil refineries

3410 Baku – general view of city

3413 Baku – burning oil well

3415 Caucasus – military road above Milety

3418 Caucasus – family moving, precipitous defile in mountain

3422 Caucasus – Ananur on the Oragwa River

3424 Caucasus – military roads, sheds

3428 Caucasus - Dariel Gorge – river below

3430 Caucasus - Dariel Gorge

3442 Moscow – Church of the Annunciation

3620 St. Petersburg – monument of Minine and Pojarsky 1818

3624 St. Petersburg – Nevsky

3772 Crimea – Kertsch [Kerch] – chariot frescoes on walls

in Kourgan at

Turkestan (30)

1090 Verni – stone mound 100 miles west of Verni

1107 Alexander Mountains – street scene in Tartar town

at base of the mountains

1164 Post Road – Post house family

1189 Vernui – beggar

1190 Vernui – Russian apple woman

1223 Tashkend [Tashkent] – Hill of Loess

1228 Tashkend [Tashkent] – street in Sart

1235 Tashkend [Tashkent] – bazaar

1247 Tashkend [Tashkent] – court in mosque adjoining the bazaar

1250 Tashkend [Tashkent] – buying grapes by weight, water-worn

stones being used as weights

1253 Chemkeut – Tartar boy and a dongla

1273 Tashkend [Tashkent] – two old Sarts on horseback

1275 Tashkend [Tashkent] – grain market

1291 Samarkand – a side addition on Timur’s tomb

1309 Samarkand – barber shop in the Righistan

1311 Samarkand – a Sart with his horse in the street

1312 Samarkand – corner of a side court – “The Tiger” of the Righistan

1313 Samarkand – court off from the Righistan

1317 Samarkand – East side of the Righistan

1318 Samarkand – from the Righistan towards the low dome of the

bazaar

1321 Samarkand – the “General’s Tomb”

1324 Samarkand – the Bebekan from the wall of the Righistan

1325 Samarkand – court off from the Righistan

1326 Samarkand – from the market towards one of the summer palaces

1327 Samarkand – tombs in the fortifications – back of the tombs of the

Timur’s wives

1328 Samarkand – a single tomb

1329 Samarkand – a number of tombs

1333 Samarkand – a corner of the Righistan showing the booths

and shops

1335 Samarkand – ruins of the Bebekan from the market

1347 Samarkand – filling a water skin