Clearwater Florida, pt. 1 (23319)

Scope and content:

Photo archive of 75 items, including 36 silver gelatin photographs and 39 large format duplicate and original negatives, ranging from 3 x 4 inches to 5 x 4 inches, all contained in 12 original studio envelopes with some annotations by George Fulmer. Clearwater, Florida and nearby Pinellas County, circa 1951-1953. The most vivid images center on stage performance and organized social programming: women posed onstage around a table with boxed goods and a large lamp, presenting household furnishings in a display that links entertainment to domestic consumption; girls lined across a stage in dresses for a group performance; a young female solo performer standing at microphone or center stage; a mixed adult group assembled under stage lighting in what appears to be a presentation or awards moment; and a trio of female performers in matching dance poses. These theatrical scenes are matched by audience and setting views that show older men dining together in booths and at tables, large lounge interiors arranged for conversation and gathering, office and reception spaces, a broad institutional kitchen, a man on a ladder opening a ceiling hatch in a decorated hall, a child holding a large fish outdoors, and exterior views of a corner cleaners and tailoring shop with painted signage reading "EST. 1909 CLEANERS" and "TAILORING." Original studio envelopes retain Fulmer job numbers, dates, and handwritten identifications including "Hart Cleaners," "BPW Club," "Weekend in Clearwater," "Court Crest Room," "Bank, Central Pinellas, Largo," and "Pinellas Utility Co. Cooking School," placing the images within the working files of a commercial city photographer covering Clearwater's residential, service, and promotional life.

In the years after World War II, Florida's Gulf Coast cities grew through in-migration, small-business development, utility expansion, hospitality design, and new forms of residential settlement aimed at permanent and seasonal residents alike. Fulmer's photographs place Clearwater within that broader transformation at street level through the rooms, services, labor, and public-facing businesses that made postwar residential growth workable as daily life rather than as abstract development. Some negatives with light damage; photographs very good, negatives largely good overall. A coherent single-photographer group of original studio material from George Fulmer's Clearwater practice, with negatives, prints, and job-envelope evidence intact.

(From seller's item description).

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