Art work of Portland, Mt. Hood and the Columbia River. Edition De Luxe of Photogravures. Benj. A. Gifford, Illustrator.

Racine, WI & [Chicago, IL]: W.D. Harney Photogravure Publisher; [The Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.], 1912. Nine vols. Folio. 11.25 x 14.2 in. [109 unnumbered leaves]., including illustrated photogravure title, first leaf w/ photogravure and rubricated decorated initial, w/ 80 photogravure plates (some w/ colour-tinting), all preserving tissue guards. Quarter-brown cloth over burgundy-brown coloured softcovers, all front covers lettered & illustrated in gilt (couple corners w/ slight creasing, slight sunning to couple covers, few tissue guards w/ creasing, or folds), still a NF set, stapled as issued. First edition of this scarce and complete (a couple listings indicate 8 volumes as complete which are incorrect) photogravure art set filled with the remarkable images of Benjamin Gifford. Gifford (1859-1936) is considered perhaps Oregon’s most famous photographer, and his beautiful images included here depict Mt. Hood, the glaciers on Mt. Hood, street scenes in Portland, OR, the reconstructed Fort Astoria, Native Americans fishing at Celilo Falls, a Native American teepee above the Columbia River, the Forestry Building erected for the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, Chief Hash-na-shut of the Wasco Tribe, Indian burial ground on Memeloose Island, a fishwheel on the Columbia, log rafts on the Columbia River, and Klickitat Indian Baskets. Gifford first worked in Portland until 1895, then opened a studio in The Dalles, and later returned to Portland in 1910, where he continued to operate both studios until about 1920. Later his son Ralph I. Gifford took over operation of the studio, and continued to operate the business. Dye (1855-1947) was a noted Pacific Northwest historian, author, and proponent of Sacajawea as heroine of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, who also wrote prominent sections of Gaston’s Portland Oregon: Its History and Builders, as well as McLoughlin and Old Oregon, The Conquest, McDonald of Oregon, and others. Walter D. Harney (b. 1869) was a noted newspaper and magazine publisher in Oshkosh and Racine, Wisconsin who published several of these promotional works on Oregon, Spokane, and Tacoma, eventually moving to King County before World War I himself. Although Worldcat locates several sets, many of them appear to be electronic or microfilm copies, confirmed sets reside at the Columbia River Maritime Museum; Yale, & the Univ. of Michigan, Clements Library (103 leaves).