Oregon Historical Society Manuscripts Collections (1971); Supplement to the Guide to the Manuscript Collections (1975); Oregon Historical Society Microfilm Guide (1973); and an unpublished oral history catalogue.
Resources (27)
The Society has an extensive microfilm collection, much of which relates to Russian America (Alaska) and the Pacific region, where Russians were active in the 18th and first half of the 19th c. The list following does not separate microfilm from original materials. In addition, the Society recently received some microfilms containing Russian-related material; these were not processed in time for inclusion.
Alaska History Documents, ca. 1795-1938
8 reels of positive microfilm (originals in the Library of Congress and National Archives). Correspondence, diaries, journals, records, reports, minutes, logbooks, statistics, indexes, and other papers. Most concern the Russian exploration and settlement of Alaska, expeditions (e.g., to the Bering Sea), Russian trade, the Orthodox Church in Alaska, and Russians in Alaska. Includes archives of the Holy Ruling Synod, St. Petersburg; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Academy of Sciences; Ministry of the Navy; and (material from) Imperial Public Library; plus papers of Erastus Brainerd, Caleb Cushing, Ivan Petrov, and others. (NUCMC 72–1584)
Alexandier Riel
German soldier. During World War I he sent a letter, 8 December 1914, from Berlin to Miss Benedict describing battles between Germans and Russians, German attitudes toward the war, and American support for German children. (Mss 2290)
Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Espana
1 roll of microfilm, in process. Includes reports on Russian activity in the North Pacific, 1775–1817.
Archivo General de Simancas, Espana. Estado.
1 microfilm roll, in process. Contains reports on Russian activity in the North Pacific, 1814–17, and information on the Russian-American Company.
David B. Cole
"A brief historical background to the wood frame church building at 3605 NE Mallory Avenue and to other structures owned there by St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, Portland, Oregon" (1975), 6 pp.; and, with Gabriel Krivoshein, "The beginnings of the Orthodox Church in Oregon," 4 pp., n.d. (Mss 2274)
E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan
Head of the Society's Russian Desk. Tape recording, 60 min., of her lecture, 1971, "Remote Kamchatka," concerning the Bering expedition, exploration of Kamchatka, Russian eastward expansion, and the explorer S. P. Krasheninnikov. (OHS Tape 957.7 C953r)
Gavriil and Vera Petrovna Krivoshein
Russian emigres, post-1917. Tape recording, 30 min., of their reminiscences of life in Imperial Russia, the Revolution, emigration, Harbin, Alaska, and the establishment of a Russian Orthodox parish in Portland, Oregon. Interviewed by Charles di Gregorio, 1976. (OHS Cassette 92 K925d)
Henry Elliott
Photocopies of 8 unpublished drawings showing hunting and fishing in Alaska. They depict methods used by natives who supplied the Russian-American Company with furs.
Irvin Goodman
Papers, 1927-1958. 3.6 cubic feet (1 document case and 10 flat boxes). Collection includes: Speeches, papers, reminiscences and notes on the judicial system, civil rights, espionage, discrimination and class conflict; Correspondence, 1950-1959, regarding speaking engagements, writing projects, etc.; Newspaper clippings and scrapbooks regarding his cases, including the Nicolai Redin spy case and many murder cases. Irvin Goodman (1897-1958) was a Portland, Oregon native and was admitted to the Oregon Bar in 1924. He became a well-known and successful defense attorney, working on such cases as those of Nicolai Gregorovich Redin, and Wayne and Sherry Fong. He died from a heart ailment in 1958. Finding aid available: http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv11254/op=fstyle.aspx?t=k&q=irvin+goodman#overview
Ivan Veniaminov (Innokenti, Bishop of Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands)
Diary, 1821–37, 1 microfilm reel. Original at the Alaska Historical Library and Museum (Juneau).
Jacob Pelleson
Russian immigrant. His 1880 citizenship oath.
James Judge (1866-1910)
Papers, 1894–1910, 2 ft. Assistant U.S. Treasury agent for the seal fisheries of the Pribilof Islands. Includes correspondence, 1894–1903, pocket notebooks, 1897–1907, reports, 1895–1905, seal reports, 1896–1904, fox reports, journals, a census, receipts, and other documents.
Joseph Billings (17587-1806)
Photostat of a report, 8 pp., on the exploration of Russian America, 1787–95. Original in the National Library of Scotland. (Mss 1501)
Logbooks
Includes microfilm of original logs held in the Massachusetts Historical Society: the Atahualpa, 1811–15, commanded by John Sutter; and the Pearl, 1804–18, commanded by John Ebbets. Both vessels were involved in shipping for the Russian-American Company. The Atahualpa log includes information on the Russians in Hawaii, January-July 1815. (Micro 6 and 23, respectively)
Mikhail I. Belov
"Geograficheskoe otkrytie severnoi azii (Issledovaniia severnykh otriadov Vtoroi Kamchatskoi ekspeditsii Vitusa Beringa)," 17 pp.; and "Mangazeia—pervyi russkii zapoliarnyi gorod, po materialam arkheologicheskikh raskopok," 24 pp. The second also concerns the Siberian fur trade in the 16th–17th c.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Bolkhovitinov
Soviet historian. Tape recording, 30 min., of a lecture he delivered, 3 September 1975, at the Society on early Russian-American relations and research. (OHS Tape 906 066 sant)
Photograph Collection
Includes photos on the following subjects: Alaska (files 25–33); Fort Ross (file 407 in part); Russia, Russians, Siberia (file 925-A); and for the Belov and Derbyshire collections. Draft catalogue for the iconographic collection.
Russian Advance into Alaska
Miscellaneous holdings, some on microfilm. Includes 2 letters, ca. 1785, from Peter Simon Pallas to Joseph Banks about the Russian exploration of America (microfilm; originals in the Botany Library of the British Museum—Natural History division); material of Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov concerning Alaska (2 microfilm reels; originals are in the Library of Congress); items relating to Joseph Hatchett, Matthew Guthrie, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Russian exploration of America, the Billings Expedition, the Nootka Sound controversy, Russian advance into the Pacific, fishing rights treaties, boundary questions, and the northwest coast of America. Much of the material was formerly in the British Foreign Office. (Mss 1524 and Mss 1568)
Russian History Documents, 1600-1934
24 reels of microfilm obtained through a Russian exchange program in 1968–79 (originals in Russian archives and libraries). Negative and positive film. Essays, articles, accounts, histories, bibliographies, and other material, mostly in Russian, concerning the Russian-American Company and its American colonies; Russian settlements in the Pacific; workers in Siberian gold mines; Siberian migration; Russian diplomatic relations with China and Japan; travel to and exploration of the Amur, Priamur, and Ussuri regions, the Kurile Archipelago, Sakhalin Island, Far Eastern Islands, and Siberia; the Bering Sea and other scientific expeditions, 18th–19th c.; and such cities as Irkutsk, Nerchinsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka. Unpublished guides to persons and geographic names (NUCMC 72–1674 and 73–804).
Russian-American Company
Records, 1802–67, 77 rolls of microfilm purchased from the National Archives, under which entry they are more fully described. (Microfilm M-11)
Smolensk Archives of the All-Union Communist Party
Ca. 1920–41, 68 reels of microfilm (originals in the National Archives). Seized by the Germans in World War II and then by the Americans. Described in the entry for the Widener Library, Harvard University (Cambridge, Ma.). Originals in the British Foreign Office Records.
Stratford Canning (1786-1880)
Mission to the United States papers, 1820–25, 2 microfilm reels. British diplomat. Includes some information on Russia in 1825 and on boundaries, 1820–23. Originals in the British Foreign Office Records.
Thomas Vaughan and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan
Correspondence, 1968-present, ca. 6 ft. (additions expected). Crownhart-Vaughan heads the Society's Russian Desk. Correspondence with scholars, institutions, and colleagues in the USSR. Currently not open for research.
United States Department of State
Dispatches of U.S. ministers to Russia, 1808–1906, 66 microfilm reels; originals in the National Archives (RG 59, in part). (Microfilm M-35). Related microfilm holdings obtained from the National Archives include: diplomatic dispatches. Russia, 1898–1906. U.S. Department of State, 1 roll, Microfilm M-486; consular dispatches, Vladivostok, 1898–1906, 1 roll, Microfilm M486; dispatches from United States consuls in the Amoor River region, 1856–1871 and 1871–1874, 2 rolls, Microfilm T-111; and dispatches from United States consuls in Petropavlovsk (Kamchatka), 1875–1878, 1 roll, Microfilm T104 (National Archives RG 84).
Wilbur Morton (fl. 1870s)
Papers, 1873–75, 1 box. American merchant, entrepreneur, and purveyor of goods, living in Siberia. Letters, diaries, and miscellaneous documents.
William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland (1744-1814)
Papers, 1788–93, 1 microfilm reel. British statesman and diplomat, ambassador at Madrid, 1788–89, and at The Hague, 1789–93. Includes some items on the Nootka Sound controversy. (Micro 145)
