Photographs: Slides & Transparencies Collection

This category of photographic materials comprises transparent positives. They are arranged in four series: Series 1. Lantern Slides; Series 2. Mounted Film Transparencies; Series 3. Unmounted Film Transparencies; and Series 4. Slide Sets. This collection was created for those transparencies that are not part of an institutional record group or a personal paper group.

The mounted transparencies, also known as slides, were used with a projector for teaching and presentations, beginning with glass lantern slides in the early 20^th century. These are two plates of glass, held together with black tape; one of the plates holds the black and white image on emulsion. These were sometimes hand-tinted. As early as 1917, Clarence Ward, Director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum and Professor of Art, brought to Oberlin several projection machines for glass lantern slides that were fitted with a revolving mechanism for inserting and removing slides automatically, triggered by a remote control installed in the lecture hall. Before this, slide projectors required the operator to insert and remove each slide one at a time by hand. One of Ward’s slide projectors is held by Archives; the other extant machines are still in the projection booths in the art department’s lecture halls and are occasionally used to project lantern slides. This collection’s lantern slides date from about the 1910s.

Lantern slides fell out of use with the development of projectors for mounted 35 mm color or black and white film transparencies in the 1960s. These slides have mounts made of cardboard or plastic, and were used with the Kodak carousel slide projector patented in 1965. This projector has a remote control so that the presenter could advance the slides from a short distance. For half a century professors relied on carousel projectors in the lecture hall. Projectors were operated by a technician in the booth, until digital technology gained ascendancy in the 2000s. This collection’s mounted slides date from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Unmounted film transparencies are generally high quality, 4” x 5” color transparencies, generated primarily for publications, produced in the late 20^th century until digital photography became common. This collection covers 1988-2001 with the bulk covering 2000-2001. Of particular interest are the professional color transparencies of campus buildings.