Hi, my name is Heather McClain and I serve as a Senior Archivist for the Archives and Library at the Anchorage Museum. What is great about the Ward Wells Collection, for me as an archivist, and for visiting researchers, artists, and curators, is that when the materials were donated to the Anchorage Museum in 1983, they arrived with the studio records, including a 3,000-card client directory for the Commercial series and a day-book and a rough index for the Stock series. These records help provide context and information on who ordered the images, what they were ordered for, when they were taken, who is pictured, and so on. 

For example, the order form for this photograph of a man dressed as a wrestler while promoting a brand of beer on 4th Avenue includes the date, time, place, subject, photographer needs such as lights, the number of shots taken, the intended promotional use, and who paid for the photo shoot, which is a lot of information for one image. You can see a copy of the order form in the carousel of images for this audio tour stop.

You can also explore an extended selection of photographs from the Ward Wells Collection by visiting our database at archives.anchoragemuseum.org [RB1] and searching “B1983.091”[RB2] 

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