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Record Group Number: 900000
Series/Collection Number: N2004- 9
Creator: Fairchild, Sherman, M., 1896-1971.
Title, Dates: Sherman Fairchild aerial photographs of various Florida sites, 1947-1948.
Amount: 75 items (photographic negatives)
Medium Included: Negatives : 4"x5"
Organization/Arrangement: Unarranged.
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Terms Governing Use:
Biographical/Historical:     Sherman Fairchild was born in 1896 in Oneonta, New York. His father was Republican Congressman George Winthrop Fairchild, one of the founders of International Business Machines (IBM) and the first president of that company. In 1917, during World War I, Sherman Fairchild attempted to join the military but they rejected him because of his poor health. However, the government contracted him to develop a camera for aerial photography; such cameras already existed but produced highly distorted photographs due to slow shutter speeds that could not keep up with the movement of the flying plane. Fairchild developed a camera in which the shutter was inside the lens, allowing the camera to be fast enough to produce photographs with minimal distortion.

    The Army did not accept the camera until after World War I, but Fairchild convinced them to buy two cameras for training purposes. He started the Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation in February 1920. Soon, the Army ordered twenty more and made them their standard aerial cameras. Canada, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, and the Soviet Union all purchased cameras from Fairchild's new company. Eventually, aerial surveying caught on and Fairchild started a second company, Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc. Sherman Fairchild eventually went on to design aircraft and to open several more companies, such as Fairchild Recording Equipment Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation.
Summary:     This collection contains photographic negatives of low-altitude aerial views of Florida sites. The collection was originally part of a larger collection of Fairchild's negatives in the custody of the New Jersey State Archives.
Finding Aids: Folder listing available. 0
Additional Physical Form: Select images have been digitized and are available on the Florida Memory web site: https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
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Electronic Records Access: https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
Subject Access Fields: Fairchild, Sherman, M., 1896-1971.
Aerial photography.
Photography
Aerial photographs. aat
Photographs. aat
Negatives. aat
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