Newly Processed Photograph Collections

Processing has been completed on two photograph collections. The George Rothrock collection contains stereocards and cabinet cards from the 1870's - 1890's. The James McClintock collection includes 800 photos dating from the 1860's to the 1930's.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have questions about AHF or the collections? Check out our FAQs page for answers to common questions.

Guide to Searching the Collections

Finding Aids and Resource Guides
The first stop for researchers should be our Finding Aids and Resource Guides page. Over 130 finding aids are available covering manuscipt collections, photograph collections, and oral histories. A finding aid is a descriptive guide to the content of a collection. It functions much like the preface for a book in that it describes the origin, background, contents, and arrangement of a collection. Resource Guides are quick guides to selected resources available on a specific topic.

From the Finding Aids and Resource Guides page you can browse the collections using the alphabetical links. The links take you to an annonated list of the collections. In addition, there are some Quick Lists of collections and Resource Guides.

A keyword search is availabe using the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page. This will search all the pages, including the finding aids, on the AHF website. The broader the keyword term the more results that will appear.

ASU Libraries Catalog
AHF manuscript collections and book holdings are cataloged in the ASU Libraries Catalog. On the main Catalog page, click on "Books and More". Manuscript collections can be found several ways within the Catalog. Most manuscripts are named after their creator. For best results search Author first. If you know the manuscript number, click Local Call Number, then ASU Local Number. Foundation manuscripts start with MS FM MSS then the number (1-125). For books, you can start with Author or Title or do a keyword search.

ASU Libraries Special Materials Index
AHF ephemera and approximately 5,000 images from our collections are cataloged at item-level. The item level descriptions can be searched using the Arizona Historical Foundation Index .For best results, when searching for photographs, on the search page, choose "all" in the Fields box and then enter your search terms in the Terms field. Call numbers starting with FP indicate photos.

For best results, when searching for ephemera, on the search page choose "all" in the Fields box and then enter your search terms in the Terms field. Call numbers starting with FE indicate ephemera.

To reach the search page for the Arizona Historical Foundation index:

Card Catalog
The card catalog in the AHF reading room contains a bibliography of newspaper articles, journals, books and photographs on a wide range of Arizona topics. Most sections, including the census section, are arranged alphabetically by topic or name. The catalog includes a large section on Mining, which is arranged by Individual name, name of Mine, year, and subject. Some of the sources, but not all, cited in the card catalog are housed at AHF.