Series Series 1 - Photographic negatives

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Photographic negatives

General material designation

  • Graphic material

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Series

Reference code

CA ON00380 Series 1

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Edition statement

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Class of material specific details area

Statement of scale (cartographic)

Statement of projection (cartographic)

Statement of coordinates (cartographic)

Statement of scale (architectural)

Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • [187-?] - 1988 (Creation)
    Creator
    Matthews, Robertson, 1880 - 1972

Physical description area

Physical description

1,340 photographs : b&w negatives ; 10 x 13 cm and smaller

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Archival description area

Name of creator

(1880 - 1972)

Biographical history

Robertson Matthews was born in 1880 in Yorkville, son of Reverend Matthew Henry Matthews and his second wife Naomi Dodds. Mechanically inclined as a young man, Matthews trained at the Williams Machinery Plant, where he developed a lifelong interest in engines and mechanical inventions. Matthews travelled extensively in his youth in British Columbia, Australia, and England. After attending Allegeny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania (1902-1903), he continued on to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to complete his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. In 1908, Matthews joined the Faculty of Engineering at Cornell, later becoming a full Professor. In 1913, he married Ethel Dodds. He left Cornell in 1917 to join the U.S. Government at Wilmington, Delaware, until 1921 when he became an advisor on the internal combustion engine at Langley Field, Virginia. In 1924, Matthews joined the Edison Company in Detroit to work on developments in electric heating. Matthews returned to Bolton in 1931 to care for his mother and to convalesce following a serious automobile accident. During the next forty years, Matthews experimented with hydroponics, kept daily diaries, and wrote regularly to local and American newspapers and contributed essays on technical aspects to periodicals. He published a work of short fiction entitled "His Lost Chord: glimpses of man's deepest emotion in restraint" in 1959. After Ethel's death in 1958, Matthews lived alone until 1967 when he moved into Peel Manor Home for the Aged, where he died on March 3, 1972 at the age of 92.

Custodial history

Scope and content

Series consists of negatives, mostly attributable to Robertson Matthews, predominantly glass plate negatives (10 x 13 cm), with the addition of 35 mm copy negatives and 4 x 6.5 negatives. The 35 mm negatives are copies of images from a family photo album loaned in 1988. Subjects include architectural studies, family, friends, still life, and trips. The geographic area covered includes Bolton, Albion Township, King Township, Muskoka, and the states of New York, Virginia, and Michigan.

Notes area

Physical condition

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      Location of originals

      Availability of other formats

      The glass plate and 35 mm negatives have been contact printed to provide for more efficient access.

      Restrictions on access

      Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

      Finding aids

      Appendix 1 of the Robertson Matthews finding aid includes an itemized list of the glass plate negatives, and appendix 2 includes a file list of the 4 x 6.5 cm negatives.

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