Harold Herbert Leich photograph collection
Collection
Identifier: P1049
Scope and Contents
This collection consists of black and white images taken by Leich during his traverse of the Colorado River in the summer of 1933. The photos are mostly snapshots with some enlargements, and some duplicates. They cover the stretch of the Colorado River from its source in Grand Lake, Colorado (with some taken in the mountains above the source) through western Colorado and into eastern Utah and the confluence with the Green River in what is now Canyonlands National Park. In Cataract Canyon, he lost his boat and was forced to abandon his camera when he had to walk back to civilization.
Dates
- 1933
Creator
- Leich, Harold H., 1909-1981 (Person)
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.
Conditions Governing Use
The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library’s Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.
Biographical Sketch
Harold Herbert Leich was born on February 16, 1909 in Evansville, Indiana. The Leich family had arrived in Evansville in 1848 after emigrating from Germany. The family was involved in the wholesale drug business, operating the Charles Leich & Company. Growing up along the Ohio River seemed to have a lasting influence on Hal's life, as he was attracted to travel by water, manifested in an early interest in sailing ships and the nautical life, later by river trips on the Yellowstone and Colorado Rivers, and still later as an environmental writer advocating clean water supplies.
An Evansville acquaintance steered him to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he became active with the Dartmouth Outing Club, which introduced students to the outdoor life through hiking, skiing and other winter sports. While at Dartmouth he participated in several DOC events which in retrospect have a degree of historical interest in the White Mountains region. He was a member of a DOC party which in 1926 made a Christmas vacation trip to the summit of Mt. Washington to take meteorological observations; this trip was the sparkplug behind the founding of the Mt Washington Observatory (still extant) by Joe Dodge and Bob Monahan, members of that 1926 group. In 1927 he was a participant in the first downhill ski race held in the country, a DOC event on Mt. Moosilauke in NH. He wrote excellent accounts of each in his diary and letters. In 1928 he spent a week working in a logging camp in the NH forest, and again he left in his writings a valuable account of a long-gone life. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1929.
From 1929 until 1935 he held a variety of jobs that appealed to him to some extent but were probably forced on him by the depressed economic conditions--deckhand on a coastal freighter, traveling serviceman for Sunbeam Electric, a similar job for Sears. Between these positions he took several extended river trips in home-made boats, down the Yellowstone in 1930 and an attempt to run the Colorado from its source in the Rockies to the sea in 1933. The latter attempt ended when his boat sank in Cataract Canyon (UT), and it took him several days to walk out to civilization.
In 1935 he took a Civil Service exam and landed a job with the Civil Service Commission in Washington, DC. With a break for service in the Navy during World War II, from which he retired as a lieutenant commander, he would spend his career with the CSC, retiring as chief of the policy division in 1972. During his time there he was awarded the Commissioner's Award for Distinguished Service and assisted in the organization of the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency. In the course of his career he authored many articles for professional journals in personnel management and public administration. In Washington he was an early president of the Ski Club of Washington, DC and was active in the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. He received a Master's in Public Administration from American University in the early 1950s.
In 1941 he married Cora Louise McIver; they had two sons, Harold McIver Leich and Jeffrey Renwick Leich. The family lived in Bethesda, MD from the late 1940s until Leich's 1981 death.
After retiring from the Civil Service Commission in 1972 he was an active writer on water pollution and the need for clean water, contributing columns to BioCycle, Small Town, Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, and Compost Science among other publications.
About six months after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, he died on September 9, 1981.
[written by Jeffrey R. Leich, November 2002]
An Evansville acquaintance steered him to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he became active with the Dartmouth Outing Club, which introduced students to the outdoor life through hiking, skiing and other winter sports. While at Dartmouth he participated in several DOC events which in retrospect have a degree of historical interest in the White Mountains region. He was a member of a DOC party which in 1926 made a Christmas vacation trip to the summit of Mt. Washington to take meteorological observations; this trip was the sparkplug behind the founding of the Mt Washington Observatory (still extant) by Joe Dodge and Bob Monahan, members of that 1926 group. In 1927 he was a participant in the first downhill ski race held in the country, a DOC event on Mt. Moosilauke in NH. He wrote excellent accounts of each in his diary and letters. In 1928 he spent a week working in a logging camp in the NH forest, and again he left in his writings a valuable account of a long-gone life. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1929.
From 1929 until 1935 he held a variety of jobs that appealed to him to some extent but were probably forced on him by the depressed economic conditions--deckhand on a coastal freighter, traveling serviceman for Sunbeam Electric, a similar job for Sears. Between these positions he took several extended river trips in home-made boats, down the Yellowstone in 1930 and an attempt to run the Colorado from its source in the Rockies to the sea in 1933. The latter attempt ended when his boat sank in Cataract Canyon (UT), and it took him several days to walk out to civilization.
In 1935 he took a Civil Service exam and landed a job with the Civil Service Commission in Washington, DC. With a break for service in the Navy during World War II, from which he retired as a lieutenant commander, he would spend his career with the CSC, retiring as chief of the policy division in 1972. During his time there he was awarded the Commissioner's Award for Distinguished Service and assisted in the organization of the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency. In the course of his career he authored many articles for professional journals in personnel management and public administration. In Washington he was an early president of the Ski Club of Washington, DC and was active in the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. He received a Master's in Public Administration from American University in the early 1950s.
In 1941 he married Cora Louise McIver; they had two sons, Harold McIver Leich and Jeffrey Renwick Leich. The family lived in Bethesda, MD from the late 1940s until Leich's 1981 death.
After retiring from the Civil Service Commission in 1972 he was an active writer on water pollution and the need for clean water, contributing columns to BioCycle, Small Town, Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, and Compost Science among other publications.
About six months after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, he died on September 9, 1981.
[written by Jeffrey R. Leich, November 2002]
Extent
139 Items
Abstract
The Harold Herbert Leich photograph collection consists of black and white images taken by Leich during his traverse of the Colorado River in the summer of 1933. The photos are mostly snapshots with some enlargements, and some duplicates. They cover the stretch of the Colorado River from its source in Grand Lake, Colorado (with some taken in the mountains above the source) through western Colorado and into eastern Utah and the confluence with the Green River in what is now Canyonlands National Park.
Arrangement
Most of the images are 3" x 4.5" prints, but there are some 5" x 7" and 8" x 10" enlargements. The photographs in folders 1-10 are arranged in down-river order, from the beginning of Leich's voyage until the end. In some cases, there were duplicate prints; these have been retained and labeled as c.2, c. 3, and so on, but they are not included in the image count. Folder 11 contains a photo album created by Leich himself, with the photographs tipped into corner holders, and with each photograph identified. This album is also in down-river order, but given the artifactual nature of the album, it was decided not to disassemble it but rather to keep it intact. Some, but not all, of the images in Folder 11 are duplicates of those in Folders 1-10; there are some unique views in the album that are not found in the loose photographs. Finally, there are some missing images in the album in Folder 11; these have been noted as "missing when received" on the album pages. For the most part, the loose photographs were identified in pencil on the back of the image. However, for those that were not identified, some idea of location was provided by referring to some of the many of drafts of a book Leich planned to publish about the experience, which are found in ACCN 1973. Unless noted by brackets [__], all identifications and descriptions were added by Harold Leich.
Separated Materials
See also the Harold Herbert Leich papers (ACCN 1973) located in the Manuscripts Division of Special Collections.
Processing Information
Processed by Roy Webb in 2003.
Creator
- Leich, Harold H., 1909-1981 (Person)
- Title
- Guide to the Harold Herbert Leich photograph collection, 1933
- Author
- Finding aid created by Roy Webb.
- Date
- 2003 (last modified: 2018)
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Revision Statements
- 2022: Finding aid revised and re-encoded by Sara Davis
Repository Details
Part of the J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections Repository
Contact:
295 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City Utah 84112 United States
801-581-8863
special@library.utah.edu
295 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City Utah 84112 United States
801-581-8863
special@library.utah.edu