Florida Commercial Photography (23317)

Scope and content:

Photo archive of 72 items including 38 silver gelatin photographs and 34 negatives, ranging from 3" x 4" to 4" x 5", contained in 10 photo studio envelopes. Most negatives are duplicates while some are original photographs. Clearwater, Florida, c. 1950s. Repeated and variant views show commercial properties and tourist infrastructure from multiple angles, including motels with bold seasonal signage reading "SUMMER RATES $5.00 PER COUPLE FROM APRIL 15 TO NOV. 15," "20 ROOMS $4.00 DOUBLE Apr. 1st-Dec. 1," and "REASONABLE RATES 4 UNITS $5.00 DOUBLE APRIL-JUN." Several prints and negatives picture motel exteriors, room interiors with twin beds and lamps, a modernist multi-story lodging property with projecting sign and glass-fronted office, and a low roadside restaurant or motel building beneath a large fish sign. Other images move into the wider tourist economy: downtown street scenes wih McCrory's and Maas Brothers Television signage, a storefront reading "Clearwater's American Casuals," a Parsons Paint co. facade, a Brookside Service Travel Gas station advertising regular gasoline at 26 cents, and waterfront scenes with rows of parked cars, palm-lined drives, crowded piers, and a dock packed with men, women, and children waiting or disembarking. The negatives preserve the same emphasis on repeated commercial views, indicating studio production for advertising, promotional, or business use; the group also retains photo studio envelopes inscribed by George Fulmer.

These photographs place Clearwater within the broader postwar reordering of Florida's Gulf Coast, where automobile ownership, road travel, beach recreation, and commercial real estate development produced the built environment commonly identified with Sunbelt growth. Fulmer's images are strongest where they show the interdependence of businesses rather than isolated structures: lodging needed seasonal pricing and motor access, downtown retail depended on pedestrian density and curbside traffic, waterfront toursim required parking and dock circulation, and roadside services converted through-travel into local spending. Visible edge wear, light curling, and routine handling marks to some prints and negatives; studio envelopes present. Overall good condition.

(From seller's item description).

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