Portage District Library John Todd Collection

The John Todd Photographic Collection:

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The John Todd Photographic Collection consists of over thirteen-thousand negatives of South West Michigan spanning a forty year time period beginning in 1940 and ending in 1981. The primary focus of the collection is on the City of Kalamazoo and the surrounding communities of Kalamazoo County.

Mr. John Todd was a commercial photographer who began his career in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1940, just prior to the outbreak of World War II (1941-1945). His early focus was primarily studio in nature with various grand openings and miscellaneous celebrations mixed in. At the conclusion of World War II (1941-1945) Mr. Todd began to shift into the new and exciting field of Aerial Photography. This shift would eventually result in Mr. Todd virtually abandoning studio and ground photography to focus almost exclusively on the aerial portion.

Mr. Todd documented everything from the mundane to the once-in-a-lifetime with many of his images being a one-of-a-kind glimpse into mid-twentieth century southwest Michigan. Unfortunately Mr. Todd passed away suddenly in 1981 bringing his documentation of Kalamazoo to an abrupt and unfortunate conclusion.

What is currently available on-line is a cross section of Mr. Todd’s life work. All of the negatives have been digitized utilizing a Scanmaker 9800 XL by Microtek and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 software. During this process the color of the images was enhanced to allow for better on-line viewing. Copies of the originals are available by contacting the Portage District Library’s Local Historian at (269) 329-4542 extension 608 or via e-mail at srossio@portagelibrary.info. Cost for copies is determined on a case by case basis.

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