New Digital Collection and Webcast: Sikkim Photos

Sikkim Photos (Library of Congress)
Sikkim, now part of India, borders on Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. This site includes more than 300 images from the Dr. Alice S. Kandell Collection of Sikkim Photographs. Kandell’s photographs, taken during visits between 1965 and 1979, document the daily lives of women, men, and children of the region.  The collection also includes numerous photographs of the last king, Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal, his American wife Queen Hope Cooke, and their family. Kandell's books, Mountaintop Kingdom: Sikkim (with text by Charlotte Salisbury) and Sikkim: The Hidden Kingdom, also feature photographs from this collection. In 2010, both Kandell and Cooke gave presentations at the Library of Congress about their experiences in Sikkim; see the webcast, A Tour of the Lost Kingdom: Sikkim (100 min.).

[Nepalese woman wearing purple headscarf and nose ring, holding baby, Sikkim]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. 
Dr. Alice S. Kandell Collection of Sikkim Photographs.
Kandell has dedicated her rights to the public domain. 

 

[Nepalese woman working with blue dyed wool, Sikkim]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
 Dr. Alice S. Kandell Collection of Sikkim Photographs. 
Kandell has dedicated her rights to the public domain.