Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Clarke (Emmon M.) Farmworker Photograph Collection
TBC.EMC
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: Emmon M. Clarke Farmworker Photograph Collection
Creator:
Clarke, Emmon Maika'aloa (1933-2022)
Identifier/Call Number: TBC.EMC
Physical Description:
3.56 linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1966-1996
Abstract: The Emmon M. Clarke
Farmworker Photograph Collection contains negatives, prints, and contact sheets documenting
the United Farm Workers Association's activities, such as picket lines, protests, rallies,
meetings, voting, fundraising, and operations at the
El
Malcriado
newspaper office. It also depicts families in farmworker camps,
fieldworkers, significant labor leaders and picketers such as Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta,
and Manuel Rivera, and members and performances of El Teatro Campesino. Other materials
include a publication and a portfolio of prints by photographer Jon Lewis. Bulk dates are
1966 and 1967.
Language of Material:
English.
Emmon Maika'aloa Clarke was born in Honolulu in 1933 to Robert and Charlotte Clarke, both
part Hawaiian. He grew up in Hawaii during and after World War II. He served in the Army in
Korea from 1950 to 1951 and was wounded in action. After the military, he studied for three
years at the University of Hawaii and for one year at the Brooks Institute of Photography in
Santa Barbara.
Clarke married his wife Judith, a social worker, in 1962. For Judith's work, they moved to
Tulare County in 1963, and it was during this time that Emmon became exposed to the
farmworkers' struggles. Clarke volunteered his photography skills to the National Farm
Workers Association and started documenting the Farmworker Movement during a seven-month
period starting in the winter of 1966. In his second day as a volunteer, on October 15,
1966, he photographed picketer Manuel Rivera being run over by a truck at the
Hourigan-Mosesian-Goldberg Company packing shed in Delano.
By March of 1967, he was contributing as a staff photographer and director of photography
for
El Malcriado newspaper, where he also authored one article
entitled "The Leamon King Incident" in March 1967. Later in life, Emmon and Judith Clarke
lived in Rohnert Park. He died in 2022.
The Emmon M. Clarke Farmworker Photograph Collection contains negatives, prints, and
contact sheets documenting the United Farm Workers Association's activities, such as picket
lines, protests, rallies, meetings, voting, fundraising, and operations at the
El Malcriado newspaper office. It also depicts families in
farmworker camps, fieldworkers, significant labor leaders and picketers such as Cesar
Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Manuel Rivera, and members and performances of El Teatro
Campesino. Other materials include a photo essay publication and a portfolio of prints by
photographer Jon Lewis. Most of the locations captured in images are in the San Joaquin
Valley, particularly Delano. Other locations include Los Angeles, Watsonville, Sacramento,
Texas, and New Mexico. Bulk dates are 1966 and 1967.
Most negatives are 35mm in black and white. Negatives are paired with their matching
contact sheet in folders. Not all rolls of negatives have contact sheets, and some contact
sheets lack their matching negatives.
Negatives, some prints, and slides are marked with alphanumerical unique identifiers at the
top of preservation sheets or on the back of prints. The Tom and Ethel Bradley Center
created this identification system for internal reference and for use on Digital
Collections.
Collection folders are arranged alphabetically by title.
Existence and Location of Copies
Digital reproductions of selected images from this collection are available electronically
in the
Farmworker
Movement Collection
as a part of the Tom and Ethel Bradley Center Photographs
project.
This collection is open for research use.
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection is in the public domain. Copyright status for other materials is unknown.
Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.)
beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners.
Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the
copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Emmon M. Clarke, 1996
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual,
or see the
Citing Archival
Materials
guide.
Claire V. Gordon, 2021; Elizabeth Peattie, 2024
Support for the processing of the Emmon M. Clarke Farmworker Photograph Collection is part
of the Farmworker Movement Collection grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH).
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Photographs
Albums (Books)