Marc Crawford and Abby London Crawford Photographs
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Abstract
Marc Crawford, a journalist, civil rights activist and university teacher, co-authored a pictorial history of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. His wife, Abby London Crawford, a teacher and photographer, accompanied him to veterans' reunions and related events, both in the U.S. and Spain. The collection contains Abby Crawford's photographs of these events, as well as a few related images by other photographers.
Historical/Biographical Note
Abby London Crawford, the widow of Marc Crawford, is a teacher and an accomplished photographer, whose work has appeared in the national and radical press. Marc Crawford, a journalist, civil rights activists and university teacher, collaborated with William Loren Katz on The Lincoln Brigade: A Picture History (Atheneum, 1989). In the course of preparing that book, and for several years afterward, Marc and Abby Crawford attended veterans' gatherings in the U.S. and Spain, and she documented those events in hundreds of photographs. She had been specially invited by the veterans to photograph their 1986 reunion for a planned Brigade history for young people, a project that was eventually transformed, with the enthusiastic support of Brigade Commander, Steve Nelson, into the Crawford-Katz pictorial history. After Marc Crawford's death in 1996, Abby Crawford continued to be involved with the Lincoln veterans, and to record their recent history in photographs.
After many years as a classroom teacher, Abby Crawford developed a special Music Appreciation/Choral Singing/Language Arts program at the Ella Baker School. With her friend Frances Patai, a writer who documented women's participation in the volunteer medical services during the Spanish Civil War, she sang in the New York City Labor Chorus.
Arrangement
Folders are arranged alphabetically by topic in both the Prints and Negatives series.
The files are grouped into 2 series:
Missing Title
- I: Prints
- II: Negatives
Scope and Content Note
The Crawford Photograph Collection includes approximately 1,980 color prints and four black and white prints. The color prints are 4 x 6 inches and the black and white prints are 8 x 10 inches.The negatives are stored separately from the prints, in Box 2.
Series I: The approximately 1,980 color prints are in files arranged alphabetically by topic. Most were taken by Abby London Crawford while attending special events organized by the Lincoln Brigade veterans in Spain and the United States. The bulk of the collection consists of photographs of these events; there is also a small assortment of portraits including images of Marc Crawford, Steve Nelson and James Yates. There are a few images taken in Spain by Eric Levenson and four prints by Barbara Smith of a protest outside the offices of the Village Voice newspaper. VALB members were protesting an article by Paul Berman in which veteran William Herrick made some controversial statements about brigade history.
Series II: Negatives in files arranged alphabetically by topic. The approximately 1,980 negatives are contained in a separate box from the photographs. Most of the color negatives have matching prints. There are no negatives for the 8 x 10 black and white prints.
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Access Restrictions
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the donor were transferred to New York University. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. For more information, contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
Provenance
The Crawford Photograph Collection was donated to New York University in 2002.
