Philip Johnston Collection

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Volume:: 2,115 black-and-white photographs, 1,200 negatives, 429 slides
Views include:: Photographic documentation of life on the Navajo Reservation, 1895-1945; Northern Arizona landscapes; Indian ruins; trading posts; sheep; shepherds; Navajo ¨Code Talkers¨ (U.S. Marines) in Boot Camp; Tuba City, Hopi Dances; petroglyphs; White Mesa Natural Bridge; Blue Canyon; Canyon De Chelly; Monument Valley; San Juan River; McMillan Earth Crack; Canyon Diablo Trading Post; Tonto National Bridge; Havasupai Canyon; Tolchaco; Jeddito, AZ Post Office; Kit Carson Inscription in Keams Canyon, 1863; travel photographs, Mexico; mining camps: California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, 1930-1940
Portrait(s):: William R. Johnston (Navajo Missionary); the Babbitt family; Navajo Indians
Biographical Note:: Philip Johnston, born in 1892, was the son of a missionary to the Navajo. His family moved to the Reservation when Johnston was a small child. He grew up speaking fluent Navajo and often acted as a translator. At a very early age, he began working in a trading post. Johnston was an alumni of the Northern Arizona Normal School, class of 1915. He was a civil engineer, journalist, and photographer. During WWII he initiated the ¨Code Talkers¨ program. He authored two books: The Bravest Man I Ever Knew and Lost and Living Cities of the California Gold Rush. Mr. Johnston died in 1978.
Related Material:: NAU Manuscript Collection # 146

Cline Library
Special Collections and Archives Department
Northern Arizona University