Photographs made by Amos Burg in the coastal areas between Buenos Aires,Argentina, and Chiloe Island, Chile. Most depict the area around the Strait of Magellan, and include images of terrain, harbors, ships and shipping facilities, industries, and towns, though there are also some images relating to Yahgan peoples.
Amos Burg (1901-1986) was a writer, photographer, and filmmaker for National Geographic, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and ERPI Classroom Films. He sailed around Cape Horn in a small boat in 1933-1934 and documented the trip for the National Geographic Society (NGS). Burg later obtained the release of negatives and prints from NGS to the Ethnogeographic Board, a World War II agency located in the Smithsonian. In turn, the board furnished copies to the US Navy and Army. Burg moved to Alaska in the 1950s, where he established the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Information and Education Section.
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Photo Lot 88-36, Amos Burg photographs of Argentina and Chile, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The prints in this collection were made by the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Ethnogeographic Board. They were found among the effects of Henry B. Collins, a former assistant director of the Ethnogeographic Board. Transferred from the Department of Anthropology Processing Lab through Molly Coxon, 1988.
An additional Burg photograph can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 8.
A film by Burg can be found in the Human Studies Film Archives in HSFA 94.9.1.
The Alaska State Library and Oregon Historical Society hold Burg's papers and photographs, including original negatives.
Records relating to the Ethnogeographic Board can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in the papers of Henry Bascom Collins and Homer Garner Barnett.
Records of the Ethnogeographic Board can be found in the Smithsonian Institution Archives in SIA RU000087.