Collection Guide
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Yorke, Harvey Photograph Collection
MC 100
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Contributing Institution:
Sacramento Public Library
email: sacroom@saclibrary.org
phone: (916) 264-2795
Title: Harvey Yorke Photograph Collection
Identifier/Call Number: MC 100
Physical Description:
1 box; 0.5 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1958-1964
Abstract: This is a photographic collection created by United States Air Force (USAF) Lt. Col. Harvey F. Yorke from 1958 to 1964, regarding
activities at Mather Air Force Base and at other points in his service career.
Language of Material:
English
.
USAF Lt. Colonel Harvey Felix Yorke was born on March 27, 1918 in New York City. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1930s
to live with his father, finishing high school in Santa Monica, CA. Yorke graduated from Stanford University in 1939 with
degrees in Sociology and Psychology. He was drafted into the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) on February 22, 1942, having
been rejected previously due to his colorblindness and flat feet. Yorke served in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a
Public Information Officer for bomber units. He was then stationed in Japan until his discharge on October 12, 1946. He met
Mildred Jane, an Army nurse, while recovering from malaria in a Tokyo hospital, and married her before his discharge. He also
worked as a reporter for Armed Forces Magazine.
After his discharge, Yorke moved back to Santa Monica and worked as a stringer for the Los Angeles Mirror covering San Bernardino
County. He was recalled in 1950 for the Korean War and served in the USAF. He stayed in the Air Force after the war and transferred
to Mather AFB in 1962 to be the base's Public Information Officer. Yorke was stationed at Mather until 1965, although he travelled
extensively as part of his position. After the Air Force, Yorke worked as the Communications Director for San Francisco State
University (SFSU), acting as a spokesperson for the university during the 1968 Student Strike. In the 1970s Yorke served as
the first Chief Information Officer of the California Office of Information Services. Later in the decade he served as the
press secretary to US Senator Samuel Hayakawa, a former president of SFSU. Yorke died in 1989 in Novato, CA. He was known
for taking photos when he could, having a collection of over 10,000 photographs.
Mather Field (later Mather AFB) opened in 1918 as an aviation school for the Army to train pilots for World War I. Shut down
in 1919, the base reactivated in 1941 as a training center, and remained both a school for navigation training and a part
of Strategic Air Command until the base's closure in 1993. Mather hosted Armed Forces Day in Sacramento in May 9, 1964. Attractions
included a weapons range, aircraft flybys, skydiving performances, and a mechanical dragon constructed by the Sacramento Air
Depot. President Lyndon Johnson visited the base on September 18, 1964 as part of his west coast presidential campaign tour,
departing out of Mather on Air Force One after spending the day in Sacramento.
[Identification of item], Harvey Yorke Photograph Collection, MC 100, Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento,
California
The collection is held in a single archival box. It contains a stack of photographs, along with two slide containers containing
two sets of transparent 35mm slides. There are 17 unique photographs printed by the USAF, most having at least one copy (47
total, all 8-inches by 10-inches in size). The photographs show President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 visit to Mather. The transparent
slides in the green container depict events at Mather in 1963-1964, including fire drills, aircraft taxiing, and scenes from
Armed Forces Day 1964. The slides in the blue container contain images of the family of Harvey Yorke and diagrams from a USAF
training course. A sticky note attached by the donor explains the contents of the blue container.
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by the patron. No permission is necessary to publish or quote from public records.