Watkins, Carleton Eugene
Watkins published several portfolios in the 1860s and 70s and operated a gallery devoted to his work. In the late 1870s, however, he suffered financial reverses and was forced to relinquish control of his negatives. Subsequently, he again traveled the West, taking and retaking many views, but his stock was largely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Poverty stricken and blind, he spent his last six years in a hospital for the insane.
See his Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon (repr. 1979) and Photographs, 1861–1874 (repr. 1989) and W. Naef and C. Hult-Lewis, ed., The Complete Mammoth Photographs (2011); studies by P. E. Palmquist (1983), A. Rule, ed. (1993), and D. R. Nickel (1999).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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