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Harry J. Utzy, Jr. photographs
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Held at: Old York Road Historical Society [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Old York Road Historical Society. 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
Harry J. Utzy, Jr. (1908-1992), a resident of Jenkintown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was a commercial, portrait, and news photographer active in the Jenkintown area.
In the summer of 1943, Utzy travelled the length of the Alaska Highway and most other roads in the state with Herbert C. Lanks, a World War II correspondent, shortly after the highway was completed. Beginning at the Willys-Overland plant in Toledo and ending in New York, Lanks documented their journey in his book, Highway to Alaska published in 1944.
Bibliography:
Lanks, Henry C. Highway to Alaska. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1944.
The Harry J. Utzy, Jr., photographs, 1926-1985, contain approximately 20,000 glass negatives, original film negatives, and prints that largely document the area of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Also included are photographic prints documenting the newly-constructed Alaska Highway (1943).
This collection is organized into series by municipality or format: Abington, Area, Bryn Athyn, Cheltenham, Glenside, Hatboro, Jenkintown, Lower Moreland, Rockledge, Upper Moreland, Other, Lantern Slides, Negatives, Color Slides, and Oversized Prints. Within the series, folders are in order by subject and include photographic prints and often negatives; there is also a separate file of additional negatives. Many earlier negatives and prints were collected and restored by Utzy. The prints documenting Utzy's journey through Alaska, specifically the Alaska Highway, are stored separately.
An item-level catalog covering most of the collection is available on-site.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Old York Road Historical Society directly for more information.
People
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Old York Road Historical Society
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Faith Charlton through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Old York Road Historical Society for information about accessing this collection.