Max Hubacher Photographs

The Max Hubacher Photographs comprise twenty-four glass plate negatives measuring 4 x 6 inches, and nineteen contact prints from those negatives, taken between June 6 and June 9, 1953 in Oberlin.  Max Hubacher was in Oberlin for the 1953 Commencement exercises for his daughter Sylvia’s graduation.  Many of the negatives were inscribed with the date that they were taken.  The prints have typed or handwritten notations on the backs as to the subjects and dates.  It was highly unusual for a photographer in 1953 to use cumbersome glass plate negatives, which had not been in common use since about 1925.  A note from Sylvia Hubacher to the archivist states that the plates were taken using a German Voitlander camera, the oldest name in cameras.

Sylvia Hubacher lived in French House, which is represented in seven negatives and six contact prints of the house and its staff and occupants.  There are six negatives and four prints of Commencement itself.  The Class of 1898 posed for a group photograph at French House for Max Hubacher, and according to the note on the back of the print, Edward R. Murrow featured the group portrait in a program on Oberlin’s 1953 Commencement that aired on television on June 14, 1953.  Hubacher documented Murrow’s camera crew photographing the group in one plate and print.  The remaining images show Oberlin’s business district, the train station, and a few College buildings.  Sylvia Hubacher appears in many of the photographs.