Carleton Watkins Daguerreian in the Mother Lode
that you depend upon him, and trust him, he will not disappoint you."[22] Huntington considered the men who worked for him to be in his employ twenty-four hours a day, six days a week, with little or no personal time other than Sundays.[23] So strict were Huntington's policies that he required his clerks to reside in rooms upstairs on K Street [Fig. 3] where they were provided with meals, newspapers and a small library.[24] They were forbidden to consume alcohol, gamble, much less to take pleasure with Sacramento's plentiful ladies-for-hire, who, according to Huntington, constituted four-fifths of the female population of Sacramento.[25]
Thus, Carleton was one of Huntington & Hammond's most trusted associates, and his routine gave him much latitude during his travels back and forth between Sacramento and the locations of mining operations a hundred or more miles distant where the firm's customers worked their placer mining claims and operated retail establishments to serve the gold seekers.
While on the road Carleton would deliver goods and possibly lodge at small inns along his delivery route [Fig. 9]. He would stable his team of horses with providers of that service [Fig. 13], who were also customers for Huntington & Hammond merchandise. However, making daguerreotypes while traveling on company time would have been considered a violation of trust. Under these circumstances Carleton would have been obliged to pursue his daguerreian work quietly and with his name absent from any advertising that he may have done such as the discrete "Daguerreotypes" sign next to the stable.
The circumstances of his regular employment with Huntington & Hammond actually eliminated the possibility of being publicly identified with Vance's project. Thus, we see how Vance, rather than exploiting Carleton, could have been protecting his integrity by not naming him as a participant in the Daguerreotype Panoramic Views of California [Fig. 7] project in New York in October of 1851. During his first year behind the camera in California Carleton led a creative life that was hugely productive, but also conflicted.
Let us examine how the mechanics of the project may have worked. Carleton's approach to his subjects would have been the opposite of what was standard practice for photographers of his time. The usual method was
[22] Hubert Howe Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders Commonwealth: Historical Character Study, San Francisco: The History Company, 1891, p. 30.
[23] Bancroft, p. 38.
[24] Cerinda W. Evans, Collis Potter Huntington, Newport News, Virginia: The Mariners' Museum, 1954, pp. 34-35.
[25] Lavender, p. 38.