Photographs and Slides

Scope and content:

This series comprises photographic prints and slides created or collected by Sullivan that primarily document neighborhoods, buildings, and other locations in and around Harrisonburg, Virginia from circa 1930 to 2006. Images document the areas of Harrisonburg targeted for urban renewal in the 1960s, street widening and other planning commission projects, as well as buildings and other features of downtown Harrisonburg from the 1960s-early 2000s. Images in this series were taken and used by Sullivan both in his professional capacity as City Planning Director, as well as for personal use. Other content found among this series includes images of Harrisonburg High School football games in the early 2000s as well as images of JMU students in classes taught by Sullivan and on walking tours conducted as part of his courses from 1990-2006. Items identified as photo albums in the inventory were removed from their original albums and foldered individually with corresponding captions as folder titles.

All slides have been digitized and are available within JMU Scholarly Commons (https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/rjs/). Slides are arranged topically from the original arrangement created by Sullivan, and are listed alphabetically. Descriptive titles for the topical groupings listed in the inventory were transcribed from Sullivan's own description, written onto slide reel boxes. Additionally, Sullivan wrote item level image description onto most slides in the collection. That descriptive information is listed as the image title when viewing the images within JMU Scholarly Commons.

Most slide images document Harrisonburg and the surrounding area from the 1960s-1980s. Other content includes images of Reston, VA, and Durham, NC that feature housing complexes and downtown areas. Note that images of Harrisonburg are found within the grouping labeled as "Durham, NC," as well as in the grouping titled "non-H'burg."

Arrangement:

Arranged under two headings: Photographs, and Slides. Photographs are arranged chronologically, and Slides are arranged topically.

Access and use

Contents