Davis, H. Harold (Homer Harold), 1908-1980, Photograph Collection, ca. 1900s-1970s

Held by The Filson Historical Society

Creator: Davis, H. Harold (Homer Harold), 1908-1980

Title: Photograph Collection, ca. 1900s-1970s

Rights: For information regarding literary and copyright interest for these photographs, contact the Collections Department.

Size of Collection: 9 cu. ft.

Location Number: 023PC10

Scope and Content Note

The H. Harold Davis Photograph Collection consists of thirty-one boxes and two wrapped albums. Materials consist of slides, photographic prints, positive and negative film transparencies, oversized mounted carbro or chromogenic photographic prints, and a family album from Davis’s personal collection. The collection includes personal photographs Davis took of his family on holidays and trips, shots taken of Davis working to capture photographs, and professional photographs Davis took while employed as a photographer for the Courier–Journal, specifically for use as covers for the Sunday Magazine.

The collection is organized by media type and size and then by subject. Within each series, the collection starts with personal and family photographs followed by subject photographs.

Series 1: Photographic prints, slides, and positive and negative film transparencies sorted by subject. Also included in this series is an oversized album of personal photographs.

Series 2: Miscellaneous positive and negative film transparencies. This group has retained the original order from H. Harold Davis’s personal storage drawers, which were loosely organized in alphabetical order with the above-mentioned subjects. All have been labeled but many are not in strict alphabetical order. There are also scattered slides that were included with the transparencies.

Series 3: Oversized mounted carbro, chromogenic, and photographic prints organized by subject.

Series 4: Published versions of Davis’s photographs in various formats.

Series 5: Rolled 35mm film strips of varying subjects.

NOTE: Items physically marked with “C-J,” “S-M,” or “R-M” and a date indicate when they were published in the Courier-Journal, the Courier-Journal’s Sunday Magazine, or Roto Magazine. These items include crop and editorial marks from either Davis himself or other Courier-Journal staff members.

Items removed from collection

EAT-1: Oversized carbro print titled “Smorgasbord, 1951

TOB-27: Oversized carbro print of tobacco sales

Related collections

H. Harold Davis Film Collection [023PC10.01-.03]

H. Harold Davis Papers

The Filson deeply appreciates the volunteer work of Tom Hardin in sorting, identifying, and organizing the photographs of this collection. Tom’s expertise in the field of photography and experience working with Davis at the Courier-Journal were invaluable resources in processing this collection.

Biographical Note

Homer Harold Davis, known as H. Harold Davis, was born in Corydon, Indiana, in 1908. He self-admittedly always felt drawn to the beautiful scenery of the South, and early in his career he made the move to Kentucky. Upon graduating from DePauw University, Davis began working in the advertising department of a tobacco company before leaving to work as a staff photographer at the Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times in 1935. Because of his experience in advertising at a tobacco company, as well as a childhood fascination with prisms, Davis had an ardent interest in color photography. His thought process was this: if a prism can split light into red, yellow, and blue, why couldn’t the colors be put back together to form a permanent picture?

Davis spent his early professional years working under fellow Courier-Journal photographer Charles Betz, whom he considered to be the best black-and-white photographer in the region. Davis was first discouraged from looking into the expensive color process by his coworkers. But when the Bingham family assigned him to work with their printing company Standard Gravure, he got the chance to refine the rotogravure printing press process of color photography. As a result, the Courier-Journal sent Davis to New York to study at the Eastman Graphic Arts Laboratory under notable color photographer Carlton E. Dunn.

While studying in New York, Davis was called away to Washington, D.C., to take a color photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on an experimental type of film. On May 15, 1938, Davis’s portrait of FDR became the first color photograph to be published in the roto section of the Courier-Journal and the first color photograph of a U.S. president.

Davis was one of the key figures in perfecting the technique of the color separation process, which made color printing in newspapers possible. Due to Davis’s persistence and the support of Barry Bingham, Sr., the Courier-Journal was one of the first newspapers to print photographs in color. Davis went on to photograph every U.S. president and presidential candidate from Roosevelt through Nixon, as well as every candidate for Kentucky governor and U.S. senator.

During his long career at the Courier-Journal, his favorite subjects to photograph were food, wild birds, thoroughbred horses and horse farms, and Americana scenes and landscapes. Due to his successes and contributions to the field of color photography, Davis received an honorary Master of Photography degree from the Professional Photographers Association of America in 1952. He regularly won awards in the University of Missouri’s “News Pictures of the Year” competitions, some of which are featured throughout this collection.

Davis married Helen Claire Hazelip in October 1939, and together they had one son: Homer Harold “Hal” Davis, Jr. Both Helen and Hal are featured heavily throughout the photograph collection. Davis retired as Chief Color Photographer for the Courier-Journal in 1973. In 1975, he published a book titled This Place Kentucky, which features his own photographs alongside poetry and prose written by various Kentucky authors. He died on August 11, 1980, at the age of 71.

Box List

Series 1: Photographic prints, slides, and positive and negative film transparencies

Box 1

Folder 1: Davis Family, ca. 1900

Includes photographs of Harold’s parents, Ralph and Mary Sonner Davis, and Harold as a baby

Folder 2: H. Harold Davis, ca. 1925-1950s

Folder 3: Helen Hazelip Davis, ca. 1930s-1960s

Folder 4: H. Harold Davis and Helen Hazelip Davis, ca. 1930s-1960s

Folder 5: H. Harold Davis working or photographing, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes shots of Davis shooting photographs and Courier-Journal related images, specifically the color lab and studio and other employees

Folder 6: H. Harold Davis, ca. 1950s-1970s

Folder 7: H. Harold Davis retirement party, 1973

Snapshots of Davis’s retirement party in the Courier-Journal studio. Featured are other staff members: Jimmy Keen, Tom Hardin, Billy Davis, and more

Folder 8: Davis family parties and holidays, ca. 1940s-1970s

Includes photographs and transparencies of the Davis family at family parties and holiday celebrations: Hal’s birthday parties, Christmas, Halloween, Easter, New Year’s, and Thanksgiving

Folder 9: Davis family and friends, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes photographs of miscellaneous friends of the Davis family. Most of these are unidentified but featured are Lin Caufield and Oscar and Vi Wright

Folder 10: Hal Davis, Jr., ca. 1941-1950s

Folder 11: Hal Davis, Jr., ca. 1950s-1958

Folder 12: Hal Davis, Jr., ca. 1958-1960s

Folder 13: Hal Davis, Jr., (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Folder 14: Hal Davis and Mary Ann Martin Davis wedding, July 1970

Folder 15: Animals and wildlife, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes photographs and transparencies of different plants, wildlife, and animals

Folder 16: Animals and wildlife (slides), ca. 1960s-1970s

Folder 17: Trees and flowers (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Folder 18: Arts and culture, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes photographs and transparencies of different aspects of art and culture, including weaving, quilts, interior design, historical interpretation, dance, musicians, and theater

Folder 19: Louisville Ballet (slides), ca. 1960s

Folder 20: Fairs and festivals (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Includes photographs from the Kentucky State Fair, Mt. Laurel Festival (Pineville, Ky.), Germantown Festival (Germantown, Ky.), American Folk Song Festival (Ashland, Ky.), and Corydon Festival 1959 (Corydon, Ind.)

Folder 21: New York World’s Fair (slides), 1964

Includes shots of Lyndon B. Johnson’s opening remarks

Folder 22: Buildings and historic houses/ sites, ca. 1940s-1970s

Includes the Berea College Administration Building

Folder 23: Historic houses (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Includes shots of the Puckett Cabin, the William Whitley House, the Lincoln Memorial and Cabin, Liberty Hall, the Joshua T. Bradford House, Ellerslie, the Boone Monument, the Joseph Holt Home, the Truman Home, the Eisenhower Home, and various historic cabins

Folder 24: Mills (slides), ca. 1950s

Includes shots of the Mabry Mill and Wolf Pen Branch Mill

Folder 25: Food photography, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes various staged food photographs taken by Davis for the Courier-Journal’s Sunday Magazine

Folder 26: Horses and horse farms, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes transparencies of miscellaneous thoroughbred horse farms around Kentucky and slides of horse sales at various horse farms. Features Warner Jones and Elizabeth Arden

Folder 27: Calumet Farm (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Folder 28: Churchill Downs, ca. 1940s-1960s

Folder 29: Claiborne Farm (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Folder 30: Keeneland racing, ca. 1940s-1960s

Folder 31: Kentucky Derby, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes a variety of photographs and transparencies of people, horses, and races at the Kentucky Derby and on Derby Day. Featured are Hollywood actor Joe E. Brown, Bill Corum, Derby racehorses Nashua (1955 runner-up), Dark Star (1953 winner), Hill Gail (1952 winner). Of note are the early Derby slides from possibly the late 1940s

Folder 32: Misc. horse farms (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Includes various shots at horse farms, including Darby Dan Farm, Danada Equestrian Center, Elmendorf Farm, Almahurst Farm, Castleton Farm, E. Ridge, Old Kenny Farm, Greentree Farm, Spendthrift Farm, and miscellaneous unidentified horse farms

Folder 33: Steeplechase (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Steeplechase and point-to-point horse racing at Oxmoor Farm

Box 2

Folder 34: Industry, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes shots of various laborers from whiskey, steel, textile, and tobacco industries

Folder 35: Tobacco (slides), ca. 1950s

Includes interior shots of a tobacco warehouse and tobacco sales

Folder 36: Infrastructure, ca. 1940s-1960s

Various buildings, bridges, street scenes, railways, aerial views. Included are photographs of the Statue of Liberty and the Clark Memorial Bridge

Folder 37: Landscapes, ca. 1940s-1960s

Folder 38: Miscellaneous landscapes (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Folder 39: Fall landscapes (slides), ca. 1950s-1974

Folder 40: Carl Ray Landscape Nursery (slides), ca. 1950s

Miscellaneous photographs of landscaping done by the Carl Ray Landscape Nursery, including the grounds at the Kentucky Military Institute

Folder 41: Louisville, Kentucky, Flood of 1937

Folder 42: Louisville, Kentucky, Flood of 1937

Folder 43: Politics and government, ca. 1940s-1960s

Includes shots of politicians Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Albert “Happy” Chandler, presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, and miscellaneous military aircraft and U.S. Army Air Corps negatives

Folder 44: Fire, ca. 1950s-1960s

Shots of firefighters (possibly the Louisville Fire Department) working to put out an unidentified fire

Folder 45: Portraits and people, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes a photograph of Miles Camp (1938), and various portrait photographs of unidentified models and people

Folder 46: Portraits and people (slides), ca. 1950s-1974

Includes slides of miscellaneous unidentified models and people, laborers, a Cub Scouts group, and Indigenous peoples. Included is a copy slide of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic nude photograph by Bert Stern, used in the first issue of the Playboy magazine in 1949

Folder 47: Sports and recreation, ca. 1940s-1960s

Folder 48: Water sports and fishing, ca. 1940s-1970s

Includes photographs and slides of boating, fishing, houseboating, and other water sports with friends and family on the Kentucky and Ohio Rivers, and at Kentucky Lake and Lake Cumberland. Featured in this group are Helen Davis, Lin Caufield, and the Louisville Sailing Club

Folder 49: Hunting (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Various slides of duck, pheasant, and bird hunting, some with hounds

Folder 50: Kentucky Lake State Park (slides), ca. 1950s-1960s

Folder 51: Mammoth Cave National Park (slides), ca. 1950s

Folder 52: Travel and transportation, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes photographs and transparencies of various trains, bicycles, steamboats, sailboats, and vehicles of transportation

Folder 53: Kentucky travel (slides), ca. 1950s-1970s

Includes photographs of various locations around Kentucky from Davis’s travels: Cumberland Falls, Natural Bridge, Kentucky Dam, Eastern Kentucky coal train, personal family trips, and various waterfalls

Folder 54: Steamboats, ca. 1930s-1960s

Includes photographs, slides, and transparencies of various steamboats: The Avalon, The Belle of Louisville, Chris Greene (Cincinnati), and the Delta Queen

Folder 55: Tennessee and Virginia travel (slides), ca. 1950s-1974

Includes the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Smoky Mountains, and other shots of Tennessee or Virginia

Folder 56: International travel (slides), ca. 1960s-1970s

Includes a family trip to the White Cliffs of Dover, The Folies Bergère, the Louvre, Paris, London, and Niagara Falls

Folder 57: Western U.S. travel, ca. 1958-1970s

Includes a Davis family trip to Wyoming (1958), Monument Valley, Montana, Mesa Verde, and other Western U.S. landscapes

Oversized wrapped album

Album 58: Davis family album, ca. 1920s-1940s

Box 3

Contains glass slides of a Mexico trip, with photographs of people, Mexico scenes, and Diego Rivera murals, possibly in Mexico City, ca. 1940s-1950s

Box 4

Contains glass slides of a Mexico trip, with photographs of bull fighting, buildings, and close-up takes of different animals, ca. 1940s-1950s

Series 2: Miscellaneous positive and negative film transparencies

Box 5:

Contains positive and negative film transparencies of subjects from A-O: Americana, birds, boats, bridges, buildings, churches, Christmas, Derby racing (the Kentucky Derby), flowers, fruit, fall scenes, fish, historical houses, horse farms, and mills. Of note are early Kentucky Derby images, food photography, sorghum processing, the Belle of Louisville, and several notable historic homes and mills, ca. 1930s-1950s

Box 6:

Contains positive and negative film transparencies of subjects from P-W: personal photographs, parks, racing, rivers, travel, trees, tobacco, Western U.S. travel, and winter scenes. Of note are photographs of H. Harold Davis’s wife Helen and son Hal, several state parks and travel sites around Kentucky, early tobacco warehouses and sales, and rural scenes around Kentucky, ca. 1930s-1950s

Box 7:

Contains glass negatives of H. Harold Davis’s son Hal as a young boy in the early 1940s. Also includes a set of three negatives titled “Horn of Plenty.” This set was Davis’s first direct color separation negative he made in 1938. The image was later used as one of the Courier-Journal’s earliest color reproductions.

Series 3: Oversized carbro, chromogenic, and photographic prints

Box 8

Includes shots of Harold, Hal, and Helen, and other personal photographs. Includes Courier-Journal related photographs such as the building, a blueprint of the color lab and studio, Sunday Magazine covers, and a staged-food inspired photograph created for Davis’s retirement

Box 9

Animals and wildlife, ca. 1930s-1960s

Box 10

Animals and wildlife, ca. 1930s-1960s

Box 11