Russell W. Angel

The present photographs were created in the 1920s through early 30s by Russell W. Angel, including a presentation album with views of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, the Jordan Creek Redwoods, the American Redwood Grove, The Native Daughters of the Golden Westwood Grove, as well as sweeping views of forests’ adjacent coastline. The album apparently served as a sales tool as well, as the inside cover of the book contains a price list based on size and style of print. Also included is a group of 8 x 10 photographs of these same parks, many of which have an affixed caption to the bottom of the print.

Angel’s work documenting the Redwoods was not, however, motivated solely by finances. He was an early member of the Save the Redwoods League. After witnessing the devastation of the logging industry’s devastation to Northern California’s ancient groves, conservationists John C. Merriam, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn founded the league in 1918. The organization aims to protect and restore Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia trees through the preemptive purchase and development rights to notable areas with such forests. In 1919, members of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs established the Women’s Save the Redwoods League in Humboldt County. Angel contributed a number of his photos to pamphlets and publications produced by both of these groups (a few of which are included in the collection). In 1966, the Save the Redwoods League put on an exhibit showing the early photographers associated with the cause, and Angel’s work seen alongside that of contemporaries such as H.C. Tibbitts, Gabriel Moulin, and Woodbridge “Woody” Metcalf.