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Southern California Edison collection of negatives and photographs

Description

The Southern California Edison collection of negatives and photographs consists of roughly 80,000 images created and acquired by the company from approximately 1883 – 1980s, with the bulk of the collection covering 1910 - 1960. Formats include glass and film negatives, photo cards, loose photographs, photograph albums, lantern slides, and related materials. Most of the images were produced by Edison staff and contract photographers to document Edison facilities, products, operations, activities, and employees and for the purposes of education, advertising, training, and liability.

The SCE collection offers a range of subjects far broader than the company's original intent. In addition to infrastructural images of transmission lines, steam plants, substations, equipment, vehicles, and hydroelectric plants, the company captured the uses of light and electricity in its myriad capacities, including night lighting of streets, billboards, storefronts, and gas stations; electric kitchens and appliances in domestic and industrial settings such as restaurants and cafes; agricultural innovations in the dairy and poultry industries; lighting for recreational uses such as swimming pools, bathhouses, tennis courts and golf courses; office work and lighting; and accident scenes and disasters, particularly the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928.

Edison superintendent Benjamin F. Pearson began visually documenting aspects of the company in 1896. Pearson, an avid amateur photographer, took pictures of Edison Electric Company (EEC) facilities until 1904 when G. Haven Bishop (1879–1972) was hired as the company's first full-time staff photographer. Using an 8 x 10- inch view camera, Bishop recorded approximately 30,000 scenes during an Edison career that spanned more than three decades, or until 1939. Bishop's work is found in Series 1 through 7, and comprises most of subseries 2.

Doug White became staff photographer around 1940 during the critical period of World War II and postwar suburbanization. The archive contains approximately 5,000 negatives by White. His photographs are supplemented by those of Robert K. Noble (1895-1957), an Edison employee and skilled amateur photographer who functioned as a semi-official company photographer upon request. White's photographs are primarily found in subseries 5.

Beginning in 1952, Edison hired outside vendors to produce most of its photography. In 1978, SCE acquired the files of two of its most widely used photographers: Joe Fadler (1924-2013) and Art Adams. Fadler began shooting for Edison in 1951, mostly for Public Information, Advertising, Commercial, Operating, and the Engineering and Community Relations divisions. The archive contains approximately 24,856 images between 1951 and 1974 by Fadler in subseries 6. Art Adams worked for Edison beginning in 1959 and shot much of the material that appeared in Edison News as well as recording other special events and meetings. The archive contains approximately 4,000 negatives in subseries 8 by Adams, from 1959 through 1978.

Together Fadler and Adams covered the construction of all three San Onofre Nuclear Plants (SONGS); the Sylmar earthquake of 1971; Mandalay Water Desalinization Plant; environmental treatment of Edison facilities; street lighting developments; the first Electro-Static Precipitator at El Segundo; management meetings and special events; construction of Mammoth Pool; and the operation of coal plants at Four Corners and Mojave.

Type
Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date
approximately 1883-1989
Call number
photCL SCE
Creator
Southern California Edison Company(Opens in new tab)
Provenance
Gift of Edison International, December 2005.
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)
View in the Online Archive of California(Opens in new tab)

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