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Guide to the Branson DeCou Archive, 1920-1941

Processed by Visual Resource Collection staff.

The University Library

Special Collections and Archives

University Library

University of California, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California, 95064

Email: specoll@library.ucsc.edu

URL: http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/

Note

Area, Interdisciplinary, and Ethnic Studies--African StudiesArea, Interdisciplinary, and Ethnic Studies--American StudiesArea,

Interdisciplinary, and Ethnic Studies--Asian StudiesArts and Humanities--Arts--PhotographyHistory--African History

History--Asian History History--Australiasian and Oceanic History History--Modern European HistoryHistory--Latin American

HistoryHistory--United States and North American History Geographical (By Place)--AfricaGeographical (By

Place)--AsiaGeographical (By Place)--EuropeGeographical (By Place)--North AmericaGeographical (By Place)--South

AmericaGeographical (By Place)--AustraliaGeographical (By Place)--Pacific Islands

Guide to the Branson DeCou

Archive, 1920-1941

MS 38

Guide to the Branson DeCou Archive, 1920-1941

Collection number: MS 38

The University Library

Special Collections and Archives

University of California, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California

Contact Information:

Special Collections and Archives

University Library

University of California, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California, 95064

Email: specoll@library.ucsc.edu

URL: http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/

Processed by:

Visual Resource Collection staff

Date Completed:

1972

Encoded by:

OAC Unit

Descriptive Summary

Title: Branson DeCou Archive,

Date (inclusive): 1920-1941

Collection number: MS 38

Creator: DeCou, Branson

Extent: 50 boxes,

8,000 lantern slides

Repository: University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library. Special Collections and Archives

Santa Cruz, California 95064

Abstract: Glass lantern slides, negatives, photographic albums, notebooks, travelogues, and miscellaneous artifacts that

document DeCou's travels in five continents and subsequent travel lecture tours ca. 1920-1941.

Physical location: Stored in Special Collections and Archives: Advance notice is required for access to the collection.

Language: English.

Access

Collection is open for research

Publication Rights

Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their

heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce the material, please contact the Head of the Special Collections and

Archives.

Preferred Citation

Branson DeCou Archive. MS 38. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Elsie DeCou, August 1971

Funding

In 1999 the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation of New York, http://www.delmas.org , provided a grant to support to

preserve, digitize and catalog 1,475 lantern slides of Italy. More details about the Dream Pictures: Branson DeCou Archive

Guide to the Branson DeCou

Archive, 1920-1941

MS 38

digitization project can be viewed online http://library.ucsc.edu/slides/decou/ .

Grants from the American Irish Foundation and the Friends of the UCSC Library have enabled small portions of the

collection to be indexed and preserved.

Biography

Photographer and travelogue lecturer Branson DeCou journeyed the world for thirty years before his death in 1941 at the

relatively young age of 49. He was born October 20, 1892, in Philadelphia, a city with a long history of photographic

invention, from the pioneer Langenheim brothers to the work of Thomas Eakins. The city also has a tradition of collecting

and publishing photographs--the Library Company of Philadelphia, American's oldest cultural institution, had exceptional

holdings of photographic works well before 1900--as well as active associations for professionals and amateurs such as the

Philadelphia Photographic Exchange Club and the Philadelphia Photographic Society.

DeCou's father was in the wholesale shoe business in Philadelphia, but the family relocated to New Jersey where Branson

attended Blair Academy in Blairstown. Upon graduation in 1910 he entered the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken

where he more fully developed his interest in photography. After a year, however, he left to initiate what would become a

lifelong pursuit of touring the world.

The fabulous Panama Pacific International Exposition of San Francisco's 1915 World's Fair attracted an enormous number of

visitors, including Branson DeCou, who in a series of photographs recorded the Fair's night effects so effectively that they

were brought to the attention of Underwood and Underwood, a leading American photographic concern, for publication. The

wide circulation of these images encouraged DeCou to begin his own work in travelogue lecturing, allying his interests in

travel and photography. He embarked in a field that was widely popular at the time as a form of entertainment and

education. Since the mid-1800s, public and private lantern slide shows were put on by photographers in clubs, schools,

lodges, and museums on a variety of themes including world travel, religion, temperance, comic subjects, or literary

retellings. DeCou traversed America speaking to local community organizations such as the Union League Club of Chicago,

the New Jersey Orange Women's Club, and also lecturing in academic and cultural institutions such as the University of

Hawaii and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In each venue the travelogue was illustrated with an average of 150 hand-colored lantern slides and the images

synchronized to music. He called his shows "Dream Pictures" and advertised them as a "fascinating new form of

entertainment." His promotional brochures exclaimed "with the aid of the dissolving shutter and double stereopticon

exquisitely colored slides are projected perfectly synchronized to the music of the masters reproduced on the Victrola, the

combination of the two inspiring emotions." DeCou was available for single engagements on selected subjects such as

"Jungle Bound Angkor" or he could be booked for a complete series given in the form of a continuous trip "Around the

Southern Hemisphere: South Africa, South America, Australia, Tasmania, and the South Sea Islands."

DeCou was apparently highly successful, as these testimonials from several engagements convey. "The slides were the

most beautiful that we have ever had the opportunity to view. As for the lecture, you had them so spellbound that they

forgot to get uneasy and restless even in the uncomfortable camp chairs. Your enunciation is clear and the little witty

personalities that you inserted were very kindly received. You have the gift of side-stepping the stereotyped line of talk

usual in travelogues," observed a reviewer for the Newark Camera Club of New Jersey. "You surely have reason for a

swelling of the chest over that magnificent audience and its evidence of deep satisfaction with the evening," wrote Charles

Atkins, Director of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Each of the programs had its own title: "Alluring Bali: The

Last Paradise," "Ever Captivating Paris," "The Garden of Allah: Algeria and Tunisia," and also its special music:

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor for "Nature's Supreme Spectacle: The Grand Canyon of the Colorado," the second

movement of Haydn's Trio in G Major for the "Wonders of San Marco."

In March of 1932 DeCou made a second marriage to Elsie Vera Stanley, a fellow lecturer. For the last nine years of his life

they traveled extensively, and together they continued to present what then were called "musical travelogues, illustrated

with masterpieces of art and photography." Often Elsie, in a booked two week long engagement, would lecture one evening

on a specific country and Branson would perform on the next. For reserved single admission the price would be 75 cents,

for a series ticket the cost was $2.00. Ever the constant travelers, the DeCous appear to have established temporary

residencies in several cities, including Hollywood, California, where they held screenings for cultural notaries. "I must tell

you how delighted we all were with the lovely DeCou pictures and music. My guests included Rex Ingram, Mr. and Mrs.

William DeMille, etc.--all of who enjoyed them tremendously," wrote Ruth St. Denis of Los Angeles.

Branson died of a heart attack on December 12, 1941, at the home of his mother, Mrs. Charles Berwin of East Orange, New

Jersey. He had come to New Jersey after completing a lecture tour in the Eastern section of the country. Elsie continued to

lecture for several years using Branson's slides. She lived in California in Carmel, Laguna Beach, and eventually San

Marcos, where she died on the first day of January, 1997, at the age of 96. In the decades after Branson's death she

continued to travel, often observing the changes in culture and landscape, and frequently commenting that the pollution of

Guide to the Branson DeCou

Archive, 1920-1941

MS 38

some world regions made her heartsick. Some of her correspondence, for example, notes that in 1984, at the age of 83,

she had spent the winter in Europe, three months in Nairobi, and had also been to Manila and Hong Kong.

The days of lecturing with lantern slides were long over, however. Commercial color slides had been available since the

1940s, replacing the magical, hand-tinted and luminous lantern slides as a more accurate and expedient way to provide

instruction and entertainment to viewers. Elsie, at the suggestion of fellow Carmel resident Ansel Adams, proposed that the

newly inaugurated campus of the University of California in nearby Santa Cruz be the recipient of her late husband's

photographic work. In 1971, UCSC's University Library received Branson's artistic inheritance of 10,000 photographic

images. The works covered every part of the world: from Laplanders to South Pacific Islanders, from Japanese pagodas to

Egyptian pyramids. Through DeCou's vision we, who have inherited the images, can see life before industrialization, the

destruction of World War II, the effects of urbanization, and the loss of local craft and cultural traditions.

Biography by Christine Bunting, Head of Special Collections and Archives.

Scope and Content

The Branson DeCou Archive consists of 8,000 hand-tinted 3-1/4" x 4" glass lantern slides used in years of travel lecture

tours covering all countries of the world, from ca. 1920-1941. There are also accompanying negatives, 48 photographic

albums, notebooks, travelogues, slide storage boxes, and two slide projectors.

The 8,000 lantern slides and projection hardware are cataloged and stored separately in the University Library's Visual

Resources Collection.

The archive is divided into 7 series: Photographic Albums, Notebooks and Travelogues, Slides, Photographs, Negatives,

Resource Material, and Artifacts. The majority of the materials are arranged into geographic divisions, by country or area.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

DeCou, Branson

Voyages and travels--Pictorial works

Africa--Pictorial works

Asia--Pictorial works

Europe--Pictorial works

North America--Pictorial works

South America--Pictorial works

Oceania--Pictorial works

Australia--Pictorial works

Ireland--Pictorial works

Italy--Pictorial works

Lantern slides

Series 1 Photograph Albums 1920-1941

Physical Description: 47 albums

Scope and Content Note

The first series contains the photograph albums. The black and white photographs found in

the albums do not necessarily correspond with the lantern slides.

Arrangement

The material is listed in a donor order, following loose geographic divisions. The box

numbers reflect the album numbers; Albums 1-8,46 Africa and Asia, Albums 8-32,47 Europe,

Albums 29-34,36-42,44-45 North America, Albums 35,41-43 South America, Albums 44-45

Australasia

Box 1

Africa, California, Canada

Box 2

Algeria, Tunisia

Box 3

Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco

Box 4

Java, Singapore, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Mombassa (Kenya), Zanzibar, Tanganyika,

Republic of South Africa, Natal

Guide to the Branson DeCou

Archive, 1920-1941

MS 38

Series 1Photograph Albums 1920-1941

Box 5

Zululand (Natal), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Rhodesia, South Africa, Uruguay,

Argentina, Brazil, West Indies, Martinique

Box 6

Hawaiian Islands, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia

Box 7

Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Bali, Java

Box 8

Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Italy, Japan, China, Philippines,

India, Austria, Central Europe

Box 9

Ireland, S. S. Normandie (ocean liner)

Box 10

England, Scotland, Wales

Box 11

England, Holland, Germany, Belgium, France

Box 12

Switzerland, Germany (Rhine), Belgium, Holland, England, Ireland

Box 13

France, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark

Box 14

France, Russia, Finland, Denmark, England

Box 15

Norway, Sweden, Denmark

Box 16

Iceland, Norway, Sweden

Box 17

Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France

Box 18

Belgium, Holland

Box 19

Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, Monaco

Box 20

Italy, Austria, Germany, France

Box 21

Italy

Box 22

Italy, England

Box 23

France, Switzerland, Italy

Box 24

Madeira, Morocco, Portugal, France, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden

Box 25

Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria

Box 26

Madeira, Spain, Italy, Capri, Sicily, Israel, Egypt, Rhodes (Aegean Sea), Turkey

Box 27

Syria, Israel, Egypt, Italy

Box 28

Spain, Morocco, Algiers, Carthage, Tunisia, Italy, Sicily, Yugoslavia

Box 29

Turkey, Russia, Greece, Bermuda, Canada (Quebec), California, Arizona, New Mexico

Box 30

Sweden, Russia, Denmark, France, West Indies, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands (U.S.),

Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba

Box 31

New Mexico, California, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Madeira, Portugal,

Spain, France, New England

Box 32

Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, New Mexico, Madeira, Portugal, Spain, France,

Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Denmark

Box 33

Alaska, Canada

Box 34

Canada, Wyoming, California, Montana, Washington, Oregon

Box 35

Mexico

Box 36

California

Box 37

California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming

Box 38

Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Utah, Oregon, California, New Mexico,

Arizona, Colorado

Box 39

Bahamas, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California, Ohio, Massachusetts,

New Hampshire, Idaho

Box 40

California, Alaska

Box 41

California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Florida, West Indies, Curacao, Haiti, Virgin Islands

(U.S.), Antigua, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico,

Box 42

Peru, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, California, Arizona, Mexico

Box 43

Panama, Colombia, Equador, Peru

Box 44

Hawaiian Islands, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Java

Box 45

Hawaiian Islands

Box 46

Unbound photo album containing Thailand, Cambodia, Japan.

Box 47

Unbound photo album containing Europe, architecture, sculpture, painting.

Guide to the Branson DeCou

Archive, 1920-1941

MS 38

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