Jerry Hanson was the Head of Mapping for the 1937 Rainbow Bridge Monument Valley Expedition. We are fortunate to have connected with his granddaughter, Anna Lessenger-Soland, many years ago when she reached out to us. Since then, Jerry’s family members have graciously shared with us many letters, documents, a monograph and a multigenerational recorded conversation that have given us deeper insight into the Expedition’s planning, mapping and Jerry’s personal experiences during the 1937 field season. Topography was an integral part of Expedition Director, Ansel Hall’s mission: to map the “uncharted” land. Of course now we acknowledge that the landscape has been represented in many forms by Native Peoples since ancient times. In the 1930’s this was not an assumption nor was it in the general consciousness of researchers from this time.
Photographed above is the letter from RBMVExpedition Director Ansel Hall, appointing Jerry Hanson as the Chief Topographer. Jerry brought many years of experience in map making to direct the large team of students working over thousands of square miles in the summer of 1937 to create maps of the region.
Above are photographs of Jerry’s monograph. The pages were very carefully typed by Jerry’s daughter-in-law, Claire Hanson, in order to leave space for Jerry’s hand-drawn illustrations and photographs from his summer experience. If you would like to see the entire monograph, please reach out to us.
Thank you to the Hanson family for so generously sharing these documents and their stories with us.
