?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
THE AL-CAN HIGHWAY (PHOTOGRAPHY.) HARRIS, MASTER SERGEANT HERBERT W. Photographic archive of the construction of the Al-Can Highway. Portrait, two military raises in grade, photo-copy of his discharge and nearly one hundred photographs recording the building of the Alaska-Canadian highway, average size 3x4 inches, some larger, some smaller. should be seen Canadian Wilderness, 1942-1943
The photographic record of the building of the Alcan highway by the 95th Engineer Regiment. An extraordinary feat, not simply because of its size--over 1500 miles through the Canadian wilderness--but because for the most part, the surveyors had virtually nothing to go on before putting boots on the ground. Aerial photographs showed large snow-covered tracts, with no indication of what lay beneath. These photographs were taken by Hebert W. Harris, whose official Military paperwork accompanying this photographic archive, states that he was a photographer--whether official or not we could not determine, but very likely so. The 95th Regiment consisted of 10,607 men, of whom 3695 were black. These photographs not only show the harsh conditions under which the engineer corps had to work, but give an idea of everyday life in the virtually nomadic camps that had to be moved as the highway moved. Alcan, a pet project of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came under fire from the military brass who thought they could better employ the ten thousand men in active service or protecting our borders.
