National Archives sign at Kew Gardens Station

National Archives sign at Kew Gardens Station

2009-07-08

Photographing the American Dream: the Maynard L. Parker Collection, Huntington Library, California

As announced on the ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVISTS mailing list (02009 07 07), the Maynard L. Parker Collection at the Huntington Library in California is now accessible online:

"The archive of noted architectural photographer Maynard L. Parker, who captured midcentury modern architecture on the West Coast and the nation, is now cataloged and accessible online through The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. The archive consists of some 58,000 photographs, negatives, and other materials documenting the modern home and garden in mid-20th-century America. The project was funded by a "We the People" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Parker (1901-1976) was a Los Angeles-based photographer whose work captured a postwar era of suburban middle class homes that celebrated an indoor-outdoor lifestyle and burgeoning consumer culture. From the late 1930s to the early 1970s, his images were featured in many of the nation's top shelter magazines, including House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Better Homes & Gardens, and Sunset."


According to the Huntington page on the collection, "The archive is organized by photographic assignment (identified as “projects”) and is searchable by keyword and across multiple fields in a database. Many projects also include selected digital images made from original collection material. See the finding aid through the Online Archive of California for a complete description of the archive and its contents." The collection is also linked through Calisphere, a digital collections service of the University of California Libraries designed for educators.

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