Clifford A. Maxwell Photographs

Collection

Identifier: AppMs-0297

Staff Only

Clifford A. Maxwell Photographs Digital Collection

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Scope and Contents

The Clifford A. Maxwell Photographs document businesses, events, people, and places in Johnson City, Jonesborough, greater Washington County, and the larger tri-cities region. The negatives and prints in the collection date from the 1940s and continue through the 1980s. However, many of the negatives are surrogates of items from the photographic collections of Burr Harrison and Mildred Kozsuch, among others, and portray subject matter dating as far back as the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Subjects represented in the collection include: street scenes; area farms and rural landscapes; the Tipton-Haynes historical site; Maxwell family members and ancestors, theaters including the Johnson City Community Theatre; Little Theater, and Majestic Theater; hotels including the Franklin, Pardue, and Windsor; schools including Columbus Powell, Dunbar, Langston, Milligan, and Science Hill; local businesses including Empire Furniture, Sterchi's, and the Tri-Cities Airport; railroads including the CC&O, ET&WNC ("Tweetsie"), and Southern; and local families including Carter, Embree, Faw, Gump, Hankal, Jackson, Matson, Preas, Sevier, and Wilder.

Dates

Creation: 1940-1986

Creator

Maxwell, Clifford A. (Clifford Arthur), 1906-1986 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The photographs are open for research. Item-level searching is available through the digital collection link.

Extent

10.00 Boxes (approximately 3000 negatives (mostly 4" x 5" black and white), and approximately 200-300 black and white prints of various sizes)

7.00 Boxes (three boxes contain various unprocessed prints and negatives; three boxes contain negatives that are damaged or deteriorating due to vinegar syndrome; one box contains incomplete manuscript inventories of portions of the original donation from 1987)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Method of Acquisition

The Clifford A. Maxwell Photographs were donated to the archives on March 26, 1987 by Maxwell's widow, Ruth B. Maxwell, and his son, James C. Maxwell. Additional photographs were donated on December 8, 2010 by James Maxwell.

Separated Materials

Negatives with vinegar syndrome or other damage have been removed from original boxes and stored in a separate location.

Processing Information

T. Fisher and Marie Tedesco completed processing and the collection was opened for research in June 1988. With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, project archivist Nick Shaner, with assistance from student workers, incorporated new material, reprocessed, described, and digitized the collection in 2022-2023.