Emmon M. Clarke Farmworker Photograph Collection, 1966-1996

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Summary

Creators:
Clarke, Emmon Maika'aloa (1933-2022)
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.
Extent:
3.56 linear feet
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Biographical / historical:

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.

Acquisition information:
Emmon M. Clarke, 1996
Processing information:

Claire V. Gordon, 2021; Elizabeth Peattie, 2024

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Photographs
Albums (Books)

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research use.

Terms of access:

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.

Preferred citation:

For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.

Location of this collection:
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330, US
Contact:
(818) 677-4594
Website