This collection consists largely of unlabeled photographs dating from Raleigh Sears' military service in the American Expeditionary Force during and immediately following World War I. The photographs are supplemented by captioned postcards, some color tinted, which appear to date from the same period. The postcards and photographs include images from the travels of Sears' unit, including stops in Hawaii, Asia, and Siberia. The majority of these photographs are of scenery, rather than of the troops or military images. However, there are notable images of ships, posing sailors and soldiers, and buildings like a YMCA.
Hawaii appears only briefly in images that are labeled as Honolulu. The photographs from Asia document the scenery, buildings, and people of an unidentified country: it is likely either Japan or China. Occasionally these photographs include images of an American soldier interacting with local people or posing for a picture. There is no label confirming that this man is Sears. The postcards also include images from Asia, at times uncaptioned. Some of the Asia postcards are scenery in Yokohama, Japan.
The scenes from Siberia are easier to identify. There are several photographs of dead, snow-covered men on the ground, usually with other soldiers looking over the corpses. It is unclear where in Siberia these events occured, and no labels exist for those photographs. The postcards from Siberia are typically of scenes from Vladivostok, including the arrival of troops and views over the port.
The collection also includes 4 panoramic images: 3 rolled photographs and 1 folded postcard. Two photographs and the postcard are scenic photographs of Vladivostok. The third panoramic photograph is a formal portrait of troops, unlabeled and undated.
There are also five photographs of Raleigh Sears' family members.
The photographs in this collection are accompanied by David and Robert Alexander's research on Raleigh Sears' military service, as well as a few miscellaneous papers from his post-war life. The most significant of these his an insurance policy from a railroad company, which reveals that he was a coal chute man in 1926. The rest of the collection includes some documentation on the life of Robert Alexander.
The Raleigh H. Sears Photograph Collection was acquired by Duke University through David Alexander, whose father, Robert Alexander, was the collector of this material. The Alexanders spent a lot time researching the life and military service of Sears, whose collection has no identifying information. Their research and photocopies are available in the collection for researchers using this material.
According to the Alexanders, Raleigh Sears enlisted in the U.S. Army on 5 March 1917, and was stationed in San Diego during much of World War I. Muster rolls reveal that he was on the USS Albany by April 1919, and in June 1919 was serving detached duty at the U.S. Naval Radio Station on Russian Island, near Vladivostok. Records show he was sick in April 1920, and he appears to have been transported to the Marine Barricks National Station in the Philippines by September 1920, and was back in the United States at the Navy Yard Mare Island, California, by November 1920. He was discharged with the rank of private, first class, in January 1921. Nothing is known about his activities post-war, except that an insurance policy dated 1926 reveals he was a coal chute man for a Montana railroad company.
