McChord Air Force Base photographs

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: 2021-011

Scope and Contents

The collection documents the activities at McChord Air Force base in the 1940s including portraits of commanding officers and photographs depicting events such as medal ceremonies, training exercises and leisure activities. Several photographs show the activities of Black servicemen and women and some show scenes of parades along the streets of Tacoma. Most photographs are credited to the U.S. Army Air Forces with a few taken by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Dates

Creation: circa 1940s

Creator

United States. Army Air Forces (Organization)
United States. Army. Signal Corps (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open and available for use.

Conditions Governing Use

Biographical / Historical

McChord Air Force base is located just south of Tacoma, Washington and is now part of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In 1917, Camp Lewis was established in the area and used as a training point for soldiers fighting in World War I. It later became known as Fort Lewis. In 1930, Tacoma Field began operation north of the fort. In 1938, the federal government acquired ownership of the field and it was renamed McChord Field two years later. The field was headquarters for the GHQ Air Force Northwest Air District and the 17th Bombardment Group responsible for the safety of the Pacific Northwest and Upper Great Plains during World War II. In 2010, Fort Lewis and McChord Field merged to become Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Full Extent

.21 Linear Feet (1 box)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Abstract

Arrangement

This collection was processed at the folder level. Photographs are arranged in numerical order according to the number penciled on the back of the photograph. Photographs are numbered 6 to 207 but there are many gaps within the collection.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was purchased from an antiquarian dealer in 2021.

Processing Information

Acknowledgement of Harmful Content
The Seattle Public Library Special Collections Department is committed to creating an inclusive archive that documents the history of our diverse communities in a respectful manner. Our collections include historic materials that may contain images and outdated language which can be harmful due to issues such as racism, colonialism, sexism and homophobia. This content can provide important insight into the creator and context of the historic materials but can also reveal hurtful biases and prejudices.

We may decide to use or retain harmful language in our description when the terms have been used by the creator(s) of the materials to describe themselves or their community; when we have reused description created by the donor; when we have transcribed information directly from the materials; and when using national standards such as Library of Congress Subject Headings, which allow for standardized searching and retrieval of records. When including language from the original material in our finding aids or descriptions, we will indicate that this material comes directly from the original item by putting the language in quotes or prefacing it with a note that says the description is transcribed from the item or provided by the creator.

We will continually review our finding aids to identify harmful language and encourage you to contact us at specialcollections@spl.org if you find language that causes concern.