Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Staff photographer for University of Michigan News and Information Services and contract photographer for the University of Michigan Athletic Department. Includes negatives and contact prints of game action photos of UM athletic competitions, 1978-2000 and some personal and family photos.

The Robert Kalmbach photograph collection consists primarily of 35mm negatives and contact sheets of University of Michigan athletic competitions and represents his work as a contract photographer for the Athletic department. He shot nearly every home football game between 1969 and 1998 and generally traveled to Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State away games,. He also photographed most men's home basketball and hockey game games and several games or matches each season for other sports. His photos include some to the classic images of Michigan athletics and have been widely published in Athletic Department Media Guides, game programs and other publications.

The photos are primarily black and white, though after the mid 1980s the football photos frequently include one or more rolls of color shots. the photos are arranged by sport and thereunder chronologically by year and event. For each event the negatives have been placed in protective sleeves with matching contact sheets based on roll numbers assigned by Kalmbach. For football games (and occasionally other games) with multiple rolls, the numbering system does not always correspond to the actual sequence of the game. Some of the sports photos are identified as being taken by John Heafield, another News and Information Service photographer who occasionally worked with Kalmbach. The athletic photos are organized by sport and thereunder chronologically.

The collection also includes a small number of slides and transparencies of athletic events.

Scrapbook and photo albums documenting Graham's life as student and athlete at the University of Michigan.

The Graham collection contains rich documentation of athletics and campus life in the first decade of the 20th century. The scrapbook contains clippings of newspaper accounts of football games and other athletic events; programs, posters, and tickets for musical, theatrical events and fraternity activities and variety of student memorabilia

The Photo album contains numerous pictures of the varsity team posed on campus and at pre-season training camp at Whitmore Lake and Ludington. The are many individual photos of players and coaches including Fielding Yost and Keene Fitzpatrick as well as a rare photo of the football training table. There are photos of baseball and track teams and athletes and of push ball and tug-of-war competition between classes. Campus social life documented in photos of J-Hop and other dances, fraternity houses and events, the campus "county fair" and other events including a minstrel show parade with cast members of a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin in which Graham played Little Eva. All of the images are carefully, often humorously, captioned by Graham. He always captioned photos of himself with a question mark.

The second photo album includes a few football images (duplicates of items in the first volume) and the appears to be images of Graham's family and friends.