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The Image Galleries of the University of South Alabama
Archives
The online images at
the USA Archives Web Site are but a sampling of the thousands of images housed
at the USA Archives.
The Overbey
Collection
Erik Overbey (1882-1977), a native of Hafslo, Sogn, Norway,
operated a photographic studio in Mobile, Alabama, from 1903 to 1958. During
that time he chronicled the life of the city in thousands of ways. Overbey used
an 8x10 view camera until the late 1940s and a 5x7 thereafter. His work was
straight and clean, and he probably thought of himself as a craftsman rather
than an artist. Although he made thousands of portraits, he was in his element
as an industrial photographer. Using form and mass, he composed to make the
commonplace extraordinary. Perhaps in hopes of reprint business, Overbey
purchased the negative collection of an earlier studio, W. A. Reed. As a
result, the Overbey Collection includes negatives, which date back to the 1880s
-- making it an important archive for modern historians.
The Armitstead
Collection
No synopsis available.
The ADDSCO Collection
Chartered in December 1916, the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding
Company launched the heaviest dry dock on the coast from New Orleans,
Louisiana, to Newport News, Virginia, and prepared to build and repair merchant
and naval vessels as America inched toward war. Although the shipbuilding
industry collapsed with the end of the World War I, ADDSCO continued profitable
ship-repair operations. The shipyard launched a new 16,000-ton dry dock to
accommodate demand during World War II, and by 1943 as many as 40,000 men and
women worked there. ADDSCO churned out ships in record numbers, repairing over
2,800 naval and merchant ships, and building 20 Liberty ships and 102 tankers.
The photographs displayed in this gallery illustrate this dramatic period in
Mobile's history.
The McNeely Collection
Stanley Blake McNeely, 1896-1982, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, came to
Mobile after World War I and worked for the M & O Railroad and then
Crawford Advertising Agency. In 1931 he became president of Gulf States
Engraving Company and also began his career as a free-lance photographer. Using
a variety of cameras -- Speed Graphic, Leica, and Roliflex -- McNeely
photographed weddings, Mardi Gras parades and balls, sports events, and school
activities. During World War II, he photographed all the ships launched for the
U.S. Government at Gulf Shipbuilding in Chickasaw, Alabama. His work has
appeared in numerous magazines including Life, Vogue, Fortune, and Time. In
1946 he published a photo essay entitled Bits of Charm in Old Mobile.
- Click HERE to go to the Main Page
of the USA Archives Web Site.
- Click HERE to go directly
to the Main Page of their Image Collection.
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