Fonds consists of photographs that mainly document bombings in Shanghai by military forces from Japan in 1937. It is likely that the photographs of two bombing incidents were taken when Victor was a member of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. The images show the devastation caused by the bombings including streetscapes and details of blown out buildings and dismembered casualties. Other photographs at the beginning of the album are postcards of Shanghai in its heyday before the bombings. Textual documents are from the 1930s and 1940s and include registration cards, a birthday card, a passport as well as identification cards of Victor, Valentina and Elizabeth.
Item is a photograph of a street scene with Kusakabe Kimbei’s studio on No. 7 Honchō-dōri in Yohohama, Japan, which he opened in 1880. The original title provided by Davidson was “Street scene with photo studio sign”.
: Item is a photograph of rows of the thousand armed Kannon or Bodhisattva figures at the Sanjūsangen-dō, a Buddhist temple officially known as Rengeō-in (Hall of the Lotus King) in Kyoto, Japan. This temple was a popular subject, and several photographers of the time took similar photos.
Item is a photograph showing a woman in a kago (litter, palanquin) and two male kago carriers taking a rest to smoke. A woman holding a fan wearing kimono sits on a cushion in a kago.
Item is a photograph showing people on the taiko-bashi (drum bridge) over the Shinji-ike pond and wisteria in full bloom at Kameido Tenjin shrine in Tokyo. This is one of the many photographs from this period, which were patterned after ukiyo-e woodblock prints. This photograph follows a 1865 print, Inside Kameido Tenshin Shrine by Hiroshige Ando and others.
Item is a photograph showing Professor Burton and Ōzutsu Man’emon also known as Taihō, the 18th Yokozuna, the highest ranked sumo wrestler, taken in Burton’s garden, ca. 1895. Reads, “Professor Burton and Taiho the Giant Wrestler.” Featured as Plate XII in Burton, W. K. Wrestlers and Wrestling in Japan. Tokyo: K. Ogawa, 1895.
This image is featured in "The Great Earthquake of Japan, 1891" by John Milne and W.K. Burton with 29 Plates by K. Ogawa, 1st Edition (ca 1892). It is plate IX from the book.
Item is a photograph showing a field of debris from earthquake destruction in Kasamatsu, Japan. It is a copy of Plate XV in the book "The Great Earthquake of Japan, 1891" by John Milne and W.K. Burton.