About this collection

The Taylor-Wharton Iron & Steel Company, incorporated in 1912 at what is now High Bridge, New Jersey, produced frogs, switches and other railroad fittings as well as ordnance during both World Wars. The company added the manufacture of dredge buckets after acquiring an interest in the Yuba Manufacturing Company of California in 1933.

The Taylor-Wharton Iron and Steel Company photographs and films (Accession 1971.530) collection contains photographs dating from 1870 to 1965 which are primarily of products such as dredging equipment, railroad tracks, rollers, crushers, and buckets. It also contains films of dredge buckets in operation in the United States and at international locations. It has not been digitized in its entirety.

The films presented here date from the mid 1930s to the early 1940s, and contain imagery of Taylor-Wharton dredge buckets and other equipment associated with the company. These films were shot in California and Alaska, as well as internationally in Southeast Asia, Australia, and Colombia. Many of these films include landscape scenery, aerial footage, and scenes of indigenous people, animals, and cities. There is also an instructional film on sliding and base running in baseball.

Image: Still frame of Yuba #17 gold dredge in California. Click to view film.