The Hooker Collection consists primarily of 23 photograph albums recording Hooker’s travels in Europe and her home state of California. Other documentation includes a folder of publisher’s proof prints from her book Farmhouses and Small Provincial Buildings in Southern Italy, an index of her travel photos, an album of portraits, three albums of negatives (some of travel), and a scrapbook. The bulk of the collection documents the architecture, people, and landscape of the places Hooker and her mother, Katharine Putnam Hooker, travelled during their five trips abroad between 1896 and 1923. These photo albums, carefully labeled on the spine, contain detailed indexes that indicate the provinces or cities where Hooker took each photograph. Hooker also lists this information in her index of travel photos (Box 1). In the scrapbook of her first trip to Europe in 1896 (Box 1), Hooker supplemented photographs with postcards, ticket stubs, pressed flowers, and other memorabilia.

Hooker’s views of Italy, Egypt, Ireland, and other countries in Europe provide insight into the daily lives of the inhabitants, as well as document enduring tourist sites – Trajan’s Arch, the Tower of Pisa, the Bridge of Sighs, the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, the Hagia Sophia, and many others. Hooker’s visual record of her adventures abroad calls to mind the centuries-old tradition of the Grand Tour, a trip across Europe that privileged men (and later women) took in order to expand their cultural knowledge and improve their language skills. Although Hooker’s travels post-date this tradition, they were nonetheless in the spirit of it. Her photos offer contemporary viewers a primary account of this tour.

The Hooker Collection also includes photographs of family members and nature closer to home. Hooker devoted several albums to the stunning beauty of California, its coasts, counties, and mountains. In one such album are images that may be of family friend and famous naturalist John Muir (Monterey, Box 8).

Hooker’s meticulously labeled photo albums of her tours across continents and her trips through California provide insight into the cultures that she explored, as well as insight into the newfound freedoms afforded to women at the turn of the 20th century that allowed Hooker to take such photographs.