Milton Snow Photographs

Milton Samuel Jack Snow was born to Joseph W. and Maud M. Snow in Ensley, Alabama on April 9, 1905. His family moved to Riverside County, California in 1907 and Snow graduated from Riverside Polytechnic High School in 1926. He went on to attend Riverside Junior College, where he studied geology, English, zoology, and photography in addition to working for the Avery Edwin Field photography studio after school and during the summers. In 1929, Snow left school to become the Los Angeles Museum's photographer and archaeological field man. Although he suffered from fairly pronounced cerebral palsy, he worked to overcome his physical shortcomings and established himself as a competent archaeological field photographer, participating in numerous expeditions in California, Arizona, and Utah. The work he completed during this period was important in helping to establish the Betatakin and Kiet Seel Anasazi cliff dwellings as part of the Navajo National Monument.

In 1934, Snow was hired to photograph the excavation and subsequent reconstruction of the Wupatki National Monument. At the end of the project he became the staff photographer at the Museum of Northern Arizona, beginning what would become a lifelong relationship with the institution. In September of 1935, Snow left the MNA to take a Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded job with the Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service (SCS) on the Navajo Nation. In this position, Snow was responsible for recording conditions before and after conservation measures and for helping to illustrate the social and economic conditions of the local people.

In May of 1937, Snow was hired to create a photographic department for the Navajo Service. He constructed a darkroom in the basement of the Navajo Service Employees' Club in Window Rock, Arizona and converted a Navajo Service panel truck into a mobile darkroom. During his twenty-year career, Snow created a comprehensive photographic record of U.S.-Navajo relations. He retired from the Service in about 1957 and died in New Mexico in 1986.