ALASKA - KING, George R.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Five photographs of Iñupiat life in Nome, or Sitnasuaq. An evocative group of photographs depicting daily life and seasonal migration among the Iñupiat people. The images are taken around time of the Nome Gold Rush (1899 to 1908), a period that brought a massive influx of prospectors and drastically altered the region's demographics.Nome gained worldwide attention during the gold rush, and in its aftermath the Iñupiat people underwent profound cultural and environmental shifts. Increased contact with outsiders, the rise of wage labour, and the introduction of Western goods by miners, missionaries, and teachers led to a transition from a semi-nomadic lifestyle to life in permanent villages. After the boom ended, Nome's population sharply declined, falling from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1900s to fewer than 1,500 by the 1930s.The photographer George R. King (1866-1951) was widely published, with his work appearing in Sierra Club publications and in National Geographic, including the 1919 feature Eskimo Life. Despite his visibility, little is known about his career. Mautz lists him simply as a photographer from Boston who recorded claims on the Seward Peninsula in 1907 (p. 47). King's photographs, together with those of Frank H. Nowell, the Lomen Brothers, and others, provide an important visual record during a period of rapid change.One of the images was published in The New America and the Far East (1907-10), with the photographer unidentified.

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