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Photographs (positive and negative), slides, and transparencies taken by the company's photographers to document company activities, products, services, employees at work and at leisure, company exhibits and commemorations, and the response of the company to natural disasters and civil disturbances.

In 1993, Michigan Bell as a corporate entity was subsumed within the Ameritech Corporation. As a by-product of this reorganization and the downsizing resulting from it, the company agreed to deposit with the Bentley Historical Library its extensive archive of photographic images. Totalling approximately one million images, the Michigan Bell Telephone Company photo archive consists of negatives, copy prints, and color transparencies taken in the period since World War II (the bulk beginning in 1949). The collection does not include photos taken since 1983; interspersed throughout, however, are numerous images from before 1949.

The collection has been maintained in the order received with two principal series: Positives and Negatives.

The content of the photographs in the two series varies considerably. Naturally the collection documents the products of the company (phones and other communication devices) and the services provided (e.g. employees at work or the company reacting to a specific customer need). These photos were taken both to inform the general public as accompaniment to press notices and advertising copy and as a communications vehicle within the company, informing employees through the company news publication, Tielines, of activities going on in other divisions of the company or among the various regional Bell offices.

More importantly perhaps, the collection has value for its documentation of events and activities that are common to all large companies. These include images relating to: 1. The activities of employees within the corporation at their work (office workers, repairmen, operators, various support personnel, managers, etc.); 2. The activities of employees outside their work routine as members of corporate social groups (i.e., the company baseball or ice hockey team), at home engaged in leisure time activities, or involved in company-sponsored charitable or public service functions; and 3. Commemorations of specific milestones or events (company parade floats, area office open houses, corporate displays at public events such as fairs, etc.).

In addition, the collection documents the extraordinary and unforeseen as the phone company reacts to events and emergencies not within its control (floods, tornadoes, fires, the 1967 Detroit riot, strikes, and the like) or as a participant in history-making events (the announcement in Ann Arbor of the success of the Salk polio vaccine or the preparation involved in the 1980 Republican National Convention that convened in Detroit).

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.