Bill Jay collection

The Bill Jay collection contains the research files, personal papers, and photographic materials of photographer-educator Bill Jay (1940 - 2009). The materials in the archive date from ca. 1830-2002 with the bulk of the material relating to Jay's own publications dating from 1960-2002. The archive consists of correspondence (both business and personal), teaching materials, books, periodicals, articles, manuscripts, research files, exhibition ephemera, audiovisual and photographic materials.

Jay has collected information on all aspects and periods of photographic history for more than thirty years. These files, he states, "comprise one of, if not the, most comprehensive 'banks' of information on the history of the medium anywhere in the world." Much of the collection had its origin in the original research conducted by Jay on various nineteenth century photographers including Francis Frith, Francis Bedford, Robert Demachy, Paul Martin, and Sir Benjamin Stone. Jay had also read, in a systematic manner, nearly every British and American photographic periodical of the nineteenth century. A large part of the collection is made up of photocopies made from the pages of these publications.

The eighteen file cabinets and thirty additional crates of material reflect the two main divisions established by Jay: Photographers and Topics. A number of actions were taken to make the information more accessible. The audiotaped interviews with photographers were removed from the files and housed separately, the extensive periodical indexes and tables of contents of the nineteenth century periodicals were extracted and arranged in their own subseries. Material directly related to Jay's career (biographical, academic, publications, and activities including judging, conferences, workshops, fellowships, grant applications, and Society for Photographic Education work) were removed and arranged into separate series.

Because of the great volume of Jay's collection, it was divided into ten series. Six of these series relate directly to Jay's career while the remaining four series comprising the largest part of the collection, the research files. The Topics files in Appendix A are reflective of Bill Jay's personal interests and tastes. For example, the topic Sports Photography is represented by one small folder while the topic Spirit Photography comprises ten large folders and a three-ring binder. The Photographers are not listed by name because of their enormous volume (14,000 names), but are accessible in the file drawers.