Bill Garlow Photographic Negatives Collection (MS-665)

The collection consists of thousands of film negatives documenting a wide variety of topics, people, places, and events in the history of the Miami Valley and (to a lesser extent) throughout the region and state. Most of the negatives are 35mm black and white, though some later ones are in color; a few 120mm negatives are also present in the collection. Garlow captured the images for the Dayton Journal-Herald and Dayton Daily News, but in addition to the photographs featured in the newspapers, the collection also includes shots that were not published. The materials are arranged chronologically.

Series I, Negatives, consists of film negatives dating from 1967-1998. This series is divided into two subseries, based upon their physical housing:

Subseries I-A, Sleeved Cans, consists of film negatives received still coiled up in their original metal film cans. The negatives were carefully unwound, split into strips, and stored in archival quality polyethylene sleeve pages, then placed within three-ring binder boxes. Most of the cans were identified by month and year, and so each “file” in this subseries corresponds to a month and year only. This series currently has very little description available in any form for the individual images. However, the processor indicated that common themes observed during rehousing were speeches/meetings, basketball, football, hockey, accidents and fires, and headshots. Occasionally, additional information/description was also written on the can, and these notes have been included in the description field (e.g., “includes Contest 70”) if present. Most appear to refer to contests, probably images submitted to press photography contests, in which Garlow had much success. One can also referred to “Pres. Ford, Kennedy, and Mondale,” which upon closer inspection included images of Gerald Ford, Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, as well as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. An item of interest noticed in this subseries would be the Kent State University protests (May 1970), though there are no doubt countless others. The negatives in Subseries I-A date from 1967 to 1980, though the bulk date between 1967 and 1972.

Subseries I-B, Envelopes, consists of film negatives received in individually labeled No. 10 envelopes or original Dayton Daily News photo envelopes (also No. 10 size). The negatives remain in these original envelopes, which are usually dated (typically on the flap) with the specific date on which the photographs were taken, which might differ, sometimes significantly, from the date that the photo(s) ran in the newspaper. Some envelopes include both a date and a description of the contents. Though these descriptions have not yet been indexed in the finding aid, they aid greatly in the browsability of this subseries. Items of interest that were noticed by include Blizzard of 1978 (January) and the Lucasville prison riot (April 1993), though again, there are no doubt thousands of notable events documented here. Most if not all of the negatives are 35mm, both black and white and later in color. The negatives in Subseries I-B date from January 1970 to 1998, with the bulk dating from 1973 to 1998.

Series II, Documents, contains a small amount of paper documents mainly relating to Garlow’s work as a newspaper photographer at the Dayton Journal-Herald and Dayton Daily News. For instance, this series includes a few original staff photographer assignment sheets. This series is unprocessed.