Documentary Photography

The library's holdings in this area are focused primarily within the collections of the Archive of Documentary Art, though there are extensive collections of photographs, film, and other visual materials within manuscript and archival collections, including the collections of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. The number of photographic images held by the Special Collections Library has been estimated at approximately 100,000. Most of the library’s visual materials were received as items contained in personal and family papers, organizational records, advertising archives, and other manuscript collections acquired to document various geographical or topical collecting areas. Occasionally books containing original photographic prints and collections consisting only or primarily of photographic prints, prints and negatives, or films have been acquired. Not included in the estimate of the number of photographic images is an extensive collection of picture postcards from the late nineteenth century to the present.

Current holdings include hundreds of nineteenth-century photographs—daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, salt prints, blue prints, and albumen prints—and thousands of twentieth-century photographs, many but by no means all of which relate to life in the southern United States. Representative collections include:

• Western U.S. landscapes by Timothy O’Sullivan, William Bell, John K. Hillers, and William Henry Jackson.
• Max Belcher Photography Collection
• William Gedney Photographs and Writings
• Peter Goin Photographs
• Alex Harris Photographs
• James Karales Photographs
• Paul Kwilecki Photographs and Papers
• Mel Rosenthal Photographs and Papers
• H. Lee Waters Papers
• Full Frame Archive
  

Among the collections that have been partially digitized or digitized in connection with an exhibition are the following:

• William Gedney
• Alex Harris
• Mel Rosenthal
• James Karales
• "The Urban Landscape" Digital Image Access Project

For general information about finding materials in the library's collections and how you can use them, requesting permission to reproduce, or other information as well as reference questions about the holdings in this area:

If you are getting in touch via e-mail, please be sure to include your return e-mail address in the body of the message, since it sometimes gets stripped from the header in transit. Also, if you expect a response, make sure to include a phone or fax number or postal address where we can reach you, since sometimes it is difficult or impossible to respond via e-mail. Thank you!