Thousands of Del. ag photos from ’20s, ’30s available for online viewing

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Managing Editor

DOVER, Del. — The history of Delaware agriculture is a little more accessible after the state’s public archives department has scanned and posted more than 2,000 photos taken between 1922 and 1938.
In December, the Delaware Public Archives announced it had put the Board Agriculture Glass Negative Collection on its website to allow more people to view and use the photos.
“This is one of our better collections, one that has been used frequently,” said archivist Randy Goss who helped with the project. He said some of the photos were put online in 2003, but now the entire collection is available and searchable for anywhere in the world — joining more than 10,000 images already available online under the Delaware Heritage Collection.
Goss said requests to use photos from the collection have come from as far as Europe but most requests are local, from students doing research projects to people looking into their own genealogy.
Prior to the entire collection being posted online, prospective uses would have to call to order copyies of what photos were already available online or come to the public archives building, survey the photos on microfilm and select photos for use that the archives staff would either scan digitally or make a copy.
Now the collection is searchable at www.bit.ly/DEagphotos, and with permission granted from the Delaware Public Archives, can be downloaded and used.
The collection is critical to Delaware’s history “because there is little photographic documentation of Delaware during this particular era,” the public archives said in a news release. At that time, photographs were reserved from only special occasions and were very costly.
Goss said it took one staff employee and one volunteer several months to scan and catalog the 58 boxes of glass negative photos in the collection.
The photos are the work of Roydon L. Hammond, a seed analyst working for the state Board of Agriculture, precursor to the Delaware Department of Agriculture.
In addition to hundreds of photos relating to agriculture of that era, the collection contains photographs of state buildings, wild plants, geographic landmarks, automobiles, clothing and special events in Dover and elsewhere in the state.
At that time, the Board of Agriculture housed the Bureau of Markets which was tasked with promoting the state’s economic development and Hammond essentially became the state photographer for that period of time.
That’s why, Goss added, since the collection was focused on promoting the state, there are no photos referring to hardships of the Great Depression.
Though Hammond received little recognition for his work at the time, the images have left a lasting legacy of what used to be on farms across the state.
“Hammond’s photographs stand alone because they are the work of a single photographer, with a single vision, over time. As such, the collection has a unique appeal,” wrote brothers Peter and Timothy Slavin in an issue of Outdoors Delaware, a magazine published by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources.
Peter Slavin is an author and historian and Timothy is a former Delaware state archivist. “The composition of his photographs is precise and purposeful; Hammond is both artist and scientist.”
Hammond’s use of glass negatives for photography by and large offered a clearer picture than if he’d used more typical film, Goss said.
However, the equipment around glass negative photography was cumbersome, heavy and fragile.
The glass negatives must be stored vertically to avoid deterioration of the emulsion or image on the glass and are only handled by public archives staff.
Even though versions of the photos are available to a wider audience and easier to access, Goss said the original glass negatives are here to stay as well.
“We will keep those forever,” he said.