About the Edward F. Rhodenbaugh collection

About the Edward F. Rhodenbaugh collection

Summary of Contents

This digital collection is entirely comprised of items found in the Edward F. Rhodenbaugh collection, MSS 011. The digital collection includes:

• About 150 photographs relating to scenic Idaho, geology and education.
• About 50 lantern slides used for teaching Earth Science in the early 20^th century.
• Three notebooks from the early 1920s including daily notes on trips to Idaho locations.
• Several letters and telegrams relating to Rhodenbaugh’s profession, Including correspondence to the National Geographic Society relating to the Robert Limbert article on Craters of the Moon.

Highlighted in the digital collection are trips along the North & South Highway in 1926 – a newly finished stretch of road that connected the Southern and Northern Idaho for the first time. The trip logs include many scenes of difficult driving conditions along Idaho’s roads and highways, and they also have tips for fishing and recreating in some of Idaho’s scenic locations.

Who was Edward F. Rhodenbaugh?

Edward F. Rhodenbaugh (1872-1964) was a geologist, teacher, writer, and outdoorsman.  The publication of his book, Sketches of Idaho Geology, in 1953, was the capstone of a career in teaching that began more than five decades before.  He dedicated the book to his former students at Boise High School, Gooding College, University of Idaho Southern Branch, and Boise Junior College, whose “interest and enthusiasm in the quest for knowledge of our earth, of the forces that act within it and that play upon it” inspired him to write the volume.  “May you find here not only echoes of the happy days we had together in classroom, laboratory, and on field trips,” he wrote, “but a renewal of interest in the varied physical features of our own great state of Idaho.”  Edward F. Rhodenbaugh’s interest in Idaho geology, his teaching and writing career, and his professional and personal concerns are well documented in the correspondence, articles, lectures, diaries, field trip notes, photographs, and other papers that make up the Rhodenbaugh collection in the Boise State University Library.

Online Finding Aid