This album presents a lively and idiosyncratic portrait of the Nome community in Alaska during the first decades of the 20th century. At this time, Nome was the largest city in the territory of Alaska thanks to its reputation as a gold rush town. This album provides a window onto the lives of its diverse residents and this moment of heightened interest.
In the summer of 1898, gold was discovered in Nome’s Alaska Creek, and the news triggered a stampede of prospectors who rushed to lay claim to potentially lucrative territory. This rapidly established community collapsed as hastily as it had sprung up; whilst estimates of Nome’s population at its height in the first decade of the 20th century rose as high as 20,000, by 1910 it had fallen to 2,600.
This album illustrates a range of Nome’s traditions as well as popular activities introduced by the influx of new residents. Walrus hunts, sledging expeditions, formal dinners at an Old Maid’s Convention, the Eagles basketball team shot on a baring sea ice hummock, and one million dollars of gold bullion held at the Nome bank feature amongst the diverse subjects documented by a pair of local photographers identified only as the Loman brothers. Organised with the personal integrity of a scrapbook and collated with the familiarity of a longterm community member, this unique album of 160 silver gelatin prints and cyanotypes portrays a singular moment in Nome’s unusual history.