According to an official with the Idaho Heritage Trust, the Oneida Pioneer Museum has one of the best collections of pioneer-era crayon portraits in the State. Many local families have donated these large portraits of their ancestors to the Museum instead of letting them languish in closets and barns.

Although called “crayon portraits,” kids’ Crayola crayons are not the media used to produce these portraits. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, large photographic portraits were too expensive for any but the very wealthy. In 1857, D.A. Woodward invented The Woodward Solar Enlarging Camera, which generated a weak but large image on canvas or drawing paper that was developed in the sun; he then touched up and augmented the picture with charcoal or pastels, trying to duplicate the photograph while making it look hand drawn. Tinting or gilding was sometimes added to enhance the effect. The quality of the picture was entirely dependent on the artist’s skill. This process gave birth to a new commercial portrait industry that flourished between 1860 and 1905, the “pioneer-era” of the West. 

While a few of the portraits in the Museum’s collection are photographs, the majority are crayon portraits that require careful conservation in order to prevent discoloration from sunlight and harm from handling.  DiAnne Iverglynne has been the professional conservationist who has painstakingly prepare most of the Museum’s collection to last for another 100 years. Grants from the Idaho Heritage Trust, the Idaho State Historical Society, and the Union Pacific Foundation have paid for the preservation work, which can run as high as $400 per portrait, depending on the condition of the portrait and the frame. Additional grants will be sought to pay for conservation work on the 10-12 portraits recently donated that need this work.

The portraits hang on the main floor and mezzanine of the Museum. The most recent additions are separate portraits of Henry Thomas and Sarah Isabel Morgan Thomas and another of Alfred Henry and Hannah Waldron Atkinson.  Bill Lewis of the Museum Board bravely tackles the hanging of the portraits on the Museum walls.