The Edward Steichen Naval Aviation Photographic Unit Collection at the Harry Ransom Center

This applied thesis project is based on a collection of 172 gelatin silver photographs taken by Edward Steichen’s Naval Aviation Photographic Unit during World War II. The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas was one of twelve institutions that received photographs from Edward Steichen’s personal collection upon his death in 1973. The prints in the collection depict scenes from some of the most intense fighting in the Pacific. The unit, led by Steichen throughout the war, came to be known as the preeminent combat photography unit in the Navy. My final thesis includes the following components: an analytical paper detailing the history of the unit and discussing the scope and significance of the collection; an outline of the digitization and housing processes; a Filemaker Pro database for the collection; and content generated for the Ransom Center’s Digital Collections page, scheduled for upload in late summer or early fall 2016.