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The Thomas J. Allen Photograph Collection is part of the NPS History Collection at Harpers Ferry Center, West Virginia. It holds black-and-white prints, negatives, slides, film and park ephemera made or gathered by Allen over a National Park Service career that spanned 45 years, six parks, three regional offices and a spell as assistant director.
Who he was
Thomas J. Allen was born in Pittsburgh in 1897 and grew up in Seattle. He joined the U.S. Army when the United States entered World War I in 1917, and afterwards joined the National Park Service.
| Years | Post |
|---|---|
| 1920 | Seasonal ranger, Mount Rainier National Park (two summers) |
| 1922 | Chief ranger, Rocky Mountain National Park, at the request of Superintendent Roger Toll |
| 1928 | Superintendent, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (three years) |
| 1931 | Superintendent, Zion National Park (a little over a year) |
| 1932 | Superintendent, Hot Springs National Park |
| 1936 | Superintendent, Rocky Mountain National Park (one year) |
| a year later | Director, Region II (Midwest) |
| 1941 | Director, Region I (Eastern) — the eastern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands |
| to 1944 | Major, U.S. Army Air Corps, after the attack on Pearl Harbor |
| after the war | Back as Region I director, for seven years |
| 1951 | NPS assistant director |
| 1956 | Superintendent, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks — he decided Washington was not for him |
| 1959–1965 | Director, Region III (Southwest), until he retired |
Allen married Mildred "Kim" Kimball Allen, whom he met at Hot Springs in 1932 and who appears often in his photographs; they were married until her death in 1965. His second wife was Maude de Turk, with whom he lived until his death on November 17, 1985. He is buried in the national cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco.
What the collection holds
The images record Allen's Park Service career from 1920 to 1965, with family photographs too. There are three series:
- Slides and negatives, 1940–1959 (1.5 linear feet). Glass slides, 35 mm slides and colour negatives from his years as Region I director, assistant director, superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon and Region III director. The parks most represented are San Juan National Historic Site, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and Virgin Islands National Park; folders run by park code, from the Blue Ridge Parkway and Bryce Canyon to Death Valley, Denali and the Everglades.
- Black-and-white photographs and documents, 1920–1963 (1.5 linear feet). Photographs, correspondence, annual reports, maps and park ephemera covering his whole career. Highlights include dedications of several park visitor centres, the presentation of a friendship stone from Mount Rainier to the Japanese consul in 1952, and portraits of NPS directors signed with friendly notes. An oversize box holds large items from across the series.
- Motion picture film, undated (two reels), believed to be shot by Allen and spliced from several days' footage: a superintendent's trip to Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, Mesa Verde and other parks, and trips to Yellowstone and Grand Teton with Edmund Rogers and Thomas Vint.
Using the collection
| Collection number | HFCA 2117 |
| Dates | 1920–1963 |
| Size | 3.0 linear feet |
| Digitised | not yet |
| Access | open to research; the film is kept frozen and needs at least 72 hours' notice to warm to room temperature |
| Donated by | Maude de Turk, in 1990 and 1998 |
| Citation | Thomas J. Allen Photographs, NPS History Collection (HFCA 2117) |
Rights. Most images were taken by Allen or other Park Service employees. The deed of gift transferred to the Park Service the copyright in Allen's photographs taken outside official business; for some images the photographer, and so the copyright status, is unknown. See the Park Service's copyright and restrictions information.
Research appointments are made through the NPS History Collection's archivist. Related material includes interviews in the NPS Oral History Collection (HFCA 1817), and other finding aids cover the rest of the collection.
Corrected: the guide spells Bandelier "Bandolier."
Sources
- National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center, Guide to the Thomas J. Allen Photograph Collection — processed by Jennifer Taylor in 2022 and updated by Nancy Russell in December 2024; the biography draws on Herbert Evison's oral history interview and an obituary in the collection's files.
In queste pubblicazioniBandelier National MonumentBig Bend National ParkBlue Ridge ParkwayAztec Ruins National MonumentBadlands National Park
Licenza: CC0 1.0 (pubblico dominio) · Tratto da www.nps.gov
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