Main content

Romus Broadway Photographs of the Witherspoon-Jackson Community of Princeton, New Jersey

Notifications

Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.

Overview and metadata sections

Broadway

Romus Broadway was an African American photographic and social historian who documented the Black community living in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood of Princeton, New Jersey, from the mid-20th through early 21st century. Broadway was born in 1939 in Belle Mead, New Jersey, to Jossie and John Broadway. His family relocated to a home on Birch Avenue in Princeton's Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood in 1942. Like many other African American, Italian American, and Irish American residents of the neighborhood, Broadway's parents worked in the food service industry, his mother at Princeton University and his father at the Lawrenceville School. Broadway attended the Witherspoon Street School for Colored Children, Valley Road School, and Princeton High School, where he graduated in 1956. After high school, he joined the United States Air Force and later worked for American Airlines until 1969. In the 1970s, he attended college in Massachusetts and began making collages from his photographs. Following graduation, Broadway returned to Princeton and began researching his family's history, as well as regularly photographing and chronicling people and events in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood and displaying his collages in the community. Broadway spoke regularly as a local history expert at Princeton churches and community centers up until his death in 2020.

Consists of 90 photograph collage boards, 30,000 photographic negatives, 760 color slides, and several hundred loose photographic prints, comprising Romus Broadway's body of work documenting the history of the Black community in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood of Princeton, New Jersey, from the late 1950s through the early 2000s.

Broadway began practicing photography in the mid-1950s and collaging in the late 1970s. As a lifelong resident of Witherspoon-Jackson, he became the neighborhood's local photographic historian from his home on Birch Avenue. Broadway's images document the neighborhood's residents going about their daily lives and include candid and posed shots taken of community members at family gatherings, parties, social halls, churches, school dances, weddings, sports games, and other social events, as well as socializing on the neighborhood streets. As Broadway described the impetus behind his work in a 2016 article by Lea Kahn, "The reason I started doing it is because the only pictures that many children had was the school picture. I wanted to catch them in their setting, with their friends, so they could see themselves."

Broadway's collages often combine dozens of individual portraits, and many are arranged thematically or commemorate specific events. Some also combine his own photographs with historic photographs and clippings found in yearbooks and newspapers. Broadway displayed these collages widely throughout the neighborhood at various community programs, church services, schools, and family reunions. This collection includes Broadway's completed collages, as well as negatives, photographic prints, and slides he used as their source material.

Broadway's collection provides a social history of the neighborhood's working-class African American, Italian American, and Irish American communities whose labor built and sustained Princeton University and the surrounding town throughout the 20th century. Broadway also documented Black students and alumni at Princeton University, who are also represented in several of the collages.

For Broadway's own description of his collection, researchers may refer to the following video interviews: "Romus Broadway: In His Own Words" and "Romus Broadway at the Arts Council of Princeton".

Materials remain in the groupings in which they were received, which is mostly by format. The negatives follow a numerical (and largely chronological) organizational scheme implemented by Romus Broadway.

Purchased from John O. Broadway in 2021 (AM 2022-067).

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

Digital surrogates of the collages are available online. Due to the size and fragility of the collages, it is recommended that researchers first consult digital surrogates before requesting the originals.

Baseline processing of this collection was completed by Kelly Bolding in 2022. Finding aid written by Kelly Bolding in 2022, incorporating some information from video interviews with Romus Broadway and obituaries. Original order was maintained. Negatives were rehoused from binders into archival folders but remain in their original numbered negative sleeves. Loose color slides were rehoused into slide preservers and loose photographs and negatives into folders, but no efforts were made to intellectually organize them.

No materials were removed from the collection during 2022 processing beyond routine appraisal practices.

Publisher
Manuscripts Division
Finding Aid Author
Kelly Bolding
Finding Aid Date
2022
Sponsor
Processing of this collection was sponsored by the Delafield fund.
Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Use Restrictions

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.

Collection Inventory

Scope and Contents

Consists of 92 collages ranging from roughly 25 x 21 inches to 43 x 30 inches in size, documenting community members in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood.

Physical Description

16 boxes

Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content
Collages, circa 1955-2005. 1 box.
Physical Description

1 box

Materials Viewable Online
  1. View digital content

Scope and Contents

Consists of roughly 30,000 color photographic negatives, which Broadway arranged into numbered sheets and filed in eleven binders. There are also a few loose unnumbered negatives. These negatives include source material used in his collages, as well as numerous other shots.

Physical Description

4 boxes

Negatives, No. 100-135, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 136-199, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 200-242, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 243-300, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 301-355, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 356-399, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 400-439, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 440-500, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 501-539, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 540-600, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 601-650, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 651-700, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Scope and Contents

Also includes several unnumbered sheets.

Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 702-750, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 751-798, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 799-840, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 841-899, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 900-949, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No. 950-999, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, No.1000-1122, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, A-I, unnumbered, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Negatives, unnumbered, circa 1980s-1990s. 1 folder.
Physical Description

1 folder

Photographs, circa 1955-2005. 3 boxes.
Scope and Contents

Consists of several hundred photographic prints, some of which are loose and others in unlabeled albums. While most of the prints are in color, there are also some black-and-white photographs. These photographs include source material used in Broadway's collages, as well as additional snapshots.

Physical Description

3 boxes

Slides, 1967-1997. 1 box.
Scope and Contents

Consists of 760 35mm color slides (positives).

Physical Description

1 box

Print, Suggest