COLLECTIONS

John W. Downer Collection

John Walker Downer (1881-1977) of Charleston, West Virginia, attended Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Class of ’02, before beginning a long, illustrious military and equestrian career. During WW I he commanded the battalion which fired the first American artillery shot in combat. Downer also participated in the Seventh Olympiad in Antwerp in 1920, as a member of the U.S. equestrian team. The bulk of the collection consists of photographs of Germany and France taken during and immediately after the war by German photographers. These pictures depict the German military hierarchy and the destruction of the war.


Collection Formats:

Photograph of a young Vietnamese Boy, 1968
Collection:

Sometime in 1968, C. W. Bowman took care of a young Vietnamese boy. He picked him up off the streets in Saigon during the Tet offensive (January-September of 1968). The boy’s family had been killed and he was living on the street. Charles Bowman bought him a uniform and fed him at the Company area.

FRA-00996, Tourism
Call Number: FRA-00996 Collection:

Scene along country road in northern France.

Photographs

FRA-00998, Wheat
Call Number: FRA-00998 Collection:

A wheat field in France.

Photographs

FRA-00997, Manufacturing in northern France., October 2, 1948
Call Number: FRA-00997 Collection:

Factory under construction in northern France.

Photographs

FRA-00995, Wheat
Call Number: FRA-00995 Collection:

Wheat field in France.

Photographs

FRA-00993, Agriculture/Wheat
Call Number: FRA-00993 Collection:

Wheat field in northern France. In the background, coal mine and huge slag heap.

Photographs

FRA-00994, Coal
Call Number: FRA-00994 Collection:

Full coal cars in northern French coal mine.

Photographs

FRA-00991, Mobile Caravan Exhibit
Call Number: FRA-00991 Collection:

Construction of exhibit barges and trailers for the mobile caravan exhibit prepared by the Visual Information Unit of the Information Division, ECA/OSR, Paris.

Photographs

FRA-00992, Tourism
Call Number: FRA-00992 Collection:

Scene along the road in northern France.

Photographs

FRA-00987, Mobile Caravan Exhibit
Call Number: FRA-00987 Collection:

Construction of exhibit barges and trailers for the mobile caravan exhibit prepared by the Visual Information Unit of the Information Division, ECA/OSR, Paris.

Photographs

Collection Number: 74 UL
Date: 1908 - 1943
Collection Size: 2 lf
 
 Collection Guide