Scope and Contents

Original photographic negatives, prints (black-and-white and color), and color slides and transparencies by Fishback, reflecting his career in advertising, calendar, and editorial photography; drafts of articles and correspondence by Fishback (typescripts), and incoming correspondence; copies of publications, such as magazines and annual reports, with reproductions. Lessons, assignments, outlines, and meeting minutes related to his school of photography.

Subjects of the photographs include children, sports, circuses, stage performers, landscapes, the Far East, the Air Force, industrial, female nudes and glamour, etc. Many photos were used in advertisements for photographic manufacturers such as Ansco, Kodak, Kalart, Rolleiflex, etc. His photos appeared in articles and on covers of popular camera periodicals and in Life, Look, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, and Holliday. Most of his pictures have cheerful, optimistic themes or subjects, such as his laughing daughter, Judy, posing with circus clowns.

Arrangement

Divided into twenty-two series.

Series 1: Fishback Career and Biography

Subseries 1.1: Writings and Personal Materials

Subseries 1.2: Glen Fishback School of Photography

Series 2: Photographs--Advertisements and Contests

Series 3: Numbered and labeled envelopes in Glen Fishback's numbering system

Series 4-17: Photographs by Subject

Series 4: Air Force

Series 5: Animals

Series 6: Circus

Series 7: Far East

Subseries 7.1: Places Subseries 7.2: People

Series 8: Landscapes and places

Subseries 8.1: Architecture Subseries 8.2: Grand Tetons Subseries 8.3: Nature

Series 9: Industrial

Series 10: Kids

Subseries 10.1: Babies Subseries 10.2: Children

Series 11: Men

Subseries 11.1: Glen Fishback

Subseries 11.2: Other

Series 12: Mixed Groups

Subseries 12.1: Men and Women

Subseries 12.2: Men, Women, and Children

Series 13: Nudes

Series 14: Sports

Series 15: Stage Performers

Series 16: Transportation

Series 17: Women

Series 18: Reproductions

Series 19: Duplicates

Series 20: Magazines

Series 21: Ephemera

Series 22: Slides

Series 23: Audio Visual Materials

Biographical / Historical

Glen Fishback was born in Orange, California in 1912. He became interested in photography in the early 30s after his friend took a photograph of him diving. He bought his first camera, a 39 cent univex camera, in 1934. He began his professional career as a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee from 1937 until 1939. He owned his own portrait and commercial studio for the next 17 years; he sold the studio in the mid-1950s in order to devote his time to free-lancing. In 1958, flew over the Far East with the U.S. Air Force as a brigadier general on a special assignment sponsored by U.S. Camera magazine, Ansco, Rolleiflex, and the Air Force. Fishback and his wife also established the Glen Fishback School of Photography in the 1950s. It was the only school at the time which taught how to become a freelancer. The school lasted until the 1990s, even after Fishback's death.

Fishback also wrote technical and popular articles for photographic magazines and publications.

Fishback won 10 first places in major national and international photography contests; at the time of his death, he had reportedly won more money in contests than any other photographer.

He developed an accurate and reliable exposure system which Pentax included with each of their spotmeters. Fishback's system worked for both black and white and color photography.

Fishback and his wife were friends with Edward Weston Fishback took photographs of Weston at Point Lobos. The two exchanged photos and correspondence. Fishback supplied his photos for a film on Edward Weston's Daybooks; He also wrote an article "Edward Weston, A Legend in His Own Time" for Petersen's Photographic. Fishback and his wife named their son, Kurt Edward Fishback, in honor of their friend.