In his 1933 memorandum, Peterson made a general provision for supplemental photographic work but the task of actually hammering out the details of a photographic component fell to O’Neill and his staff in Washington. Between December 12, 1933, and January 8, 1934, they formulated a policy that covered nearly every aspect of HABS photographic documentation. Photographs—at least two views of each building measured—were to be taken using a 5- by 7-inch view camera and were to include the building serial number and a foot rule for scale. In cases of groups of buildings, “buildings of irregular or complicated plan or outline,” or “important, exceptional, or particularly interesting details, either exterior or interior,” additional photographs were permitted, but HABS left the final determination to the district officer or photographer. In those cases where time and personnel constraints “make it impossible to measure and record every detail of a building,” photographs were to be used to supplement the information recorded in the measured drawings. As for the composition of the photographs, it was “more important that they be clear and sharp in their delineation of detail than that they be artistically composed or effective from a pictorial point of view.”(39)

Although paid more than stenographers, photographers earned less than their architectural counterparts in the program and were required to furnish their own cameras. An initial proposal to reimburse photographers for the costs of processing and printing film was discarded soon after it was announced. Instead, photographers—who, like the architects, had been out of work and were short of cash—were allowed to forward all invoices for processing and printing to the district offices rather than pay the invoices themselves and file later for reimbursement from the Government.(40)

Judging from the policies formulated and then reformulated in the early HABS bulletins, the Washington organizers were at a loss as to where exactly photographers and photographic documentation might fit into the HABS pecking order. The organizers articulated only the vaguest idea of how architects and photographers were to work together in the field. On the one hand, the central office thought that “it would be desirable where possible to have the photographs taken at the same time that the work of measuring is being done, so as to minimize the inconvenience to the occupants of the building.” On the other hand, the central office also cautioned district offices that the photographers “should not travel with squads if this involves periods of idleness waiting for the squads to complete their work.” In Maryland and Maine, district officers and field squads determined that photographers should travel separately from the measuring squads despite added inconvenience to property owners. While economical on paper, this approach was more costly in the field because district officers from both States often traveled at least once with the measuring squads to the project sites and then separately with the photographers.

Whereas district officers might have employed as many as 10 to 20 architects and draftsmen, they made do with one photographer or, once funding grew tight, dispensed with the photographer altogether and took the photographs themselves—often with mixed results.(41) In Maine, for instance, a reduction in force resulted in the loss of District Photographer Allen Hubbard, and the transfer of his responsibilities to Josiah T. Tubby, the Maine district officer and an architect by training. Such practice was not limited to Maine. Thomas T. Waterman and several other architects are credited with a number of photographs in the collection. (Figure 10) Photographs by architects, however, often did not meet the standards of photographs made by professional or expert photographers. While many of Tubby’s photographs are satisfactory, a number of them betray his clumsiness with a view camera and his impatience with the photographic process. None of the photos attributed to him includes the required building serial number or a scale, omissions that reduce the usefulness of the images as architectural documentation.

As a matter of policy, drawings received the highest priority. Photographs and historical reports were treated as supplemental materials and were supposed to be produced only for buildings or sites that were measured by the architectural squads. The Washington staff had hinted at the expanded use of photography as a recording tool in its bulletins, even recommending photography over measuring “in cases where consideration of time and personnel make it impossible to measure and record every detail of a building,” but the district officers recognized the economic and other advantages of photographs over measured drawings and aggressively lobbied the Washington staff to provide photographers and photographs a larger role. The tremendous impulse to photograph as many historic buildings as possible extended from Maine to California and was a direct response to increased demolition activity nationwide and the fear of premature termination of HABS for budgetary reasons. In Maryland, efforts to photograph rather than measure prompted a lengthy reply from O’Neill in Washington—

It is against the policy of the Survey to make any photographic records of structures actually existing if the structures have already been determined as unsuitable material for measurement by the Survey. We feel that anything we photograph should deserve measurement at least in part. Of course, there are many decorative elements of structures which we prefer to photograph rather than to measure and draw up with a great deal of vain labor and ineffective draftsmanship. As you know this category would include ornate, carved, or decorative plaster details and the more flowery elements of whatever Victorian or Gothic Revival subjects we might record. However these are all parts of structures of which we would make at least general measurements—at least small scale block plans and/or elevations. If a building is not worth this much labor on our part, I firmly do not think we should photograph it at all although it is conceivable that we might readily make an index card for it. Naturally, we cannot guarantee measurement this year of all subjects you photograph, but each subject photographed should be worthy of eventual measurement[emphasis O’Neill’s].(42)

Nevertheless, the Maryland district officer had his staff photograph numerous historic buildings and cityscapes for which no measured drawings were ever planned. He also had historic views of Baltimore buildings, then in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society and other repositories, replicated for the HABS collection. The district officer in Maine went so far as to photograph objects having little or no direct relation to the building arts, the most intriguing of which is a 17th-century pewter Communion set from the Walpole meeting house. (Figure 11) Although no formal connection between HABS and the Federal Art Project’s Index of American Design—another WPA program—is known to have existed, the impulse to create as complete a picture as possible of the Nation’s material culture led to a fair amount of overlap.

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