Bushell (Hiram) papers, 1921-1935

Hiram Bushell, born in Russia in 1882, arrived in Sacramento, California in the 1920s and opened a small hardware store. In 1934, during the Great Depression, he went to the Yankee Hill Work Camp that was located near Sacramento.

Collection includes diaries kept by Hiram Bushell while at the Civilian Conservation Corps’ Yankee Hill Work Camp in Yankee Hill, California (1934-1935). The diary entries contain his comments on daily life in the camp and on relationships he built while living there. Bushell’s sometimes poetic writings reveal his observations of the hierarchical relations that existed in the work camp and the ways in which he applied traditional Jewish thought to his experiences there. Also contains Bushell’s correspondence with members of his family and friends and photographs of Bushell (mainly portraits and one photograph of Bushell outside of his Sacramento hardward store).