Historical Portrait
Berberian family portrait, circa 1908
Archive record
Historical family portrait of the Berberian family, circa 1908. Features Armenian immigrants who later changed their surname to Barber in America. Public domain.
About this photograph
The Berberian family, photographed around 1908. The family were Armenian immigrants who later adopted the surname Barber in America.
The photograph is held in a collection at California State University focusing on Armenian studies. That collection has been digitised as part of California Revealed, a statewide programme that makes material from California libraries, archives, museums and historical societies publicly available online.
The portrait sits within a broader pattern of migration. Between roughly 1880 and 1920 some twenty million people arrived in the United States, most from southern and eastern Europe. Studio portraits marked that journey on both sides of it, made at home to leave with relatives or made soon after arrival and posted back as evidence of having got there and found work.
The photographer is not recorded. The archive record identifies the subjects by their original surname and notes the later change, but gives no further detail about individual family members, when they arrived, or where they settled.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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