George Fulmer’s Editorial and Commercial Photography of Postwar Clearwater: Businesses, Fashion, Real Estate, and Civic Life, circa 1951 with Identified Individuals

George Fulmer Sunbelt Expansion

Photograph

Large photograph archive of Clearwater local photographer George Fulmer's editorial and commercial projects, circa 1951. This collection sheds light on the economic expansion of the post-war Sunbelt migration, as the population of Pinellas county more than doubled. Fulmer documents a wide array of residents and businesses, from retailers, civic figures, luxury properties, businesses, business owners, public events, and local personalities of Clearwater, Florida, during his time running Fulmer & Cole Photo Shop with Seaborn J. Cole. By 1956 Fulmer was president of Fulmer Photo Service, Inc., at 601 Pinellas Street, advertising “commercial photography,” photofinishing, and photographic supplies, with Roy F. Mains, previously a finisher at Fulmer & Cole, serving as secretary treasurer. The surviving assignments establish photography as a paid intermediary between Clearwater businesses and the audiences they sought to reach: property owners commissioned architectural views, retailers commissioned merchandise and interiors, clothing merchants placed models before Fulmer’s camera, and public figures and organizations required photographs of themselves and their events.

Photo archive of over 70 items, comprising over 30 silver gelatin photographs, and over 40 large format negatives, all contained within studio envelopes bearing captions and some date Clearwater, Florida, circa 1950s. 2½ x 4½ to 4 x 5 inches. The archive contains additional later materials from Fulmer, including film and photographs from his work in the 1990s which retain their original job tickets and many handwritten notes. The numbered and captioned envelopes identify clients and assignments including Helen Marshall and the Helen Marshall Shop, the Occasion Shop, Reade Tilley, M. Louis Hull of Belleair, Louis V. Randall of Belleair, local author M. Tracy, and other Clearwater area residents, merchants, professionals, and civic figures. Fashion work includes three views of a smiling model in a swimsuit beside a display reading “Jewels of the Sea / Rose Marie Reid,” additional swimsuit photographs of three women posed beside a swimming pool, and photographs made for the Helen Marshall Shop showing a model in a fitted dark dress posed on an exterior stairway amid palms. Commercial interiors include an Occasion Shop filled with lamps, ceramics, figurines, framed pictures, and household goods; a grocery or market photographed across long merchandise aisles and cigar counters; and a window display for “Reade Tilley, optometrist,” where coins, currency, medals, and small cases are arranged above the word “diamonds.” Other assignments move between commerce and local public life: a uniformed military portrait; businessmen and civic figures photographed individually; a man seated at a microphone with papers before him; a man displaying a snake; and a group assembled beside an airplane while a woman pins a flower to one participant. The original negative envelopes preserve Fulmer & Cole’s numbered job system, while later real estate paperwork for 618 Broadway records the working instructions behind commissioned architectural photography, including “shoot from front S.E.,” “corner of house including bridge,” “closer photo of townhome,” and a direction to ask a truck owner to move a vehicle from the front of the house. These instructions expose decisions normally erased from a finished commercial photograph: where the photographer should stand, what architectural features a client wanted included, and which objects needed to be removed before an image could perform its selling function.

Fulmer’s position in Clearwater extended well beyond the assignments represented here. The Clearwater Historical Society now preserves tens of thousands of negatives donated by his estate as the “George Fulmer Photographer collection,” cataloged and numbered so that residents can still request photographs Fulmer made of them and their families. Contemporary directories show the business developing from Fulmer & Cole, which employed photographic finishers as well as its two named proprietors, into Fulmer Photo Service, Inc., an incorporated operation with president, vice president, secretary treasurer, commercial photography, processing, and retail photographic supplies. The client names and job records give the photographs an economic dimension beyond local portraiture, as they identify the merchants, professionals, property interests, organizations, and individuals who paid to turn merchandise, buildings, fashions, events, and personal appearances into reproducible public images. The archive consequently records both what postwar Clearwater looked like and part of the commercial process by which the growing Florida city presented itself to residents, consumers, visitors, and prospective property buyers. Light handling wear, occasional curling; negatives and prints generally well preserved though some negatives show degradation. Overall in good to very condition.

Item #23871

Price: $550.00