Farallon Steamship Disaster - J.E. Thwaites and His Documentation

J.E. Thwaites and His Documentation

John Edward Thwaites was one of the men on board the S.S. Farallon when it ran aground in the Cook Inlet. He worked in the ship service as a mail clerk, on the route from Valdez, Alaska to Unalaska, Alaska. His office was in the “mail closet” of the schooners, a stateroom located often on the port side of the boats.

Thwaites mainly worked on the S.S. Dora, a boat that was part of the Northwestern Steamship Company fleet, but was also assigned to other schooners travelling in the Alaskan region. Essentially, he held the responsibility of delivering mail, monthly, to the people of Southwestern Alaska, living in areas unaccessible by any other means.

Thwaites recorded the survival and events of the disaster through photography. J.E. Thwaites was an amateur photographer who owned a Kodak 3-A Special, popular in the postcard industry. While Thwaites had no professional training or schooling in photography, he was able to take advantage of the expanding postcard industry and sell his images for a profit. While stranded on the shore of Iliamna Bay Thwaites took over one hundred photographs, depiciting the desolate and harsh environment the men were victim to and documenting the tasks of primitive survival the men had to execute to stay alive.