Research Resources

The Polaroid Corporation Collection at Baker Library is exceptionally comprehensive, capturing every aspect of the firm’s sixty-four-year history (1937-2001). Spanning over 3,500 linear feet, the collection features correspondence and memos, patents, human resource records, marketing materials, research and development documentation, test photographs, audiovisual materials, and annual reports.

The material encompasses all aspects of the company’s history and has been broken down into the operational units of the company. These operational units include administrative, legal, and patent, research and development, photographs, corporate archives, audiovisual, and consultant photographers. There are separate guides for each of these functional areas.

In addition to the fourteen collections that make up the Polaroid Corporation collection, Baker Library holds a number of other archival collections related to the company.

Administrative Records, circa 1930–2005 (Series I)
Corporate governance and leadership records, 1953–1995; Polaroid Corporation Annual Reports 1937–1996; public relations and communications records, 1937–2005; human resources and personnel management records, 1940–1996.

Legal and Patent Records, 1905–2007 (Series II)
Patent application files, legal office administrative files, patents, material gathered for legal trials, and records related to the landmark patent infringement lawsuit, Polaroid vs. Kodak.

Research and Development Records, circa 1905–2000 (Series III)
Records of Polaroid scientists documenting the manufacture of innovative products during World War II and the creation and development of instant black-and-white and color photography.

Photographs and Correspondence of Polaroid Consultant Photographer Ansel Adams, 1949–1985 (Series IV)
Detailed correspondence, memoranda, and test photographs of Polaroid products by Ansel Adams in his role as consultant photographer from 1949 to 1984.

Records Related to Edwin H. Land, 1927–1995 (Series V)
Records associated with Polaroid cofounder and chairman Edwin H. Land including articles and presentations by Land, published biographical works about Land, and photographs taken by Land and of Land.

Audiovisual Collection, circa 1937–2005 (Series VI)
Over 5,000 items of audio, video, and film related to Polaroid products and Polaroid shareholder meetings, offering overviews of the company and insights into its leaders and employees.

Records Related to Meroë Morse, circa 1945–1972 (Series VII)
Administrative records, research and development records, and photographs associated with Meroë Morse, who worked at Polaroid from 1945 to 1969, was manager of black-and-white photographic research and later director of special photographic research.

Corporate Archives Records, 1935–2001 (Series IX)
Records kept by the Polaroid Corporation archivist and curator related to photography and art collections and the day-to-day operations of the Polaroid Corporate Archives.

Polaroid Photograph and Visual Materials Collection, circa 1930s–1990s (Series X)
Documents associated with the research and development of photographic processes, film research, and other development efforts of the Polaroid Corporation from the late 1930s to the 1980s.

Photographs of Polaroid Consultant Photographers, 1950–1972 (Series XI)
Test photographs taken by a selection of photographers whom Polaroid employed to test and critique its products.

Marketing and Advertising Records, 1928–2004 (Series XII)
Documentation of the company’s efforts to market and sell their wide variety of products including sunglasses, anti-glare visors, polarizers, cameras, and film to a rapidly evolving range of markets.

Artifacts Collection, 1933–2006 (Series XIII)
Artifacts manufactured and collected by Polaroid (including cameras, accessories, eyewear, lenses, and optics) and lawsuit exhibits.

Polarized Lights Corporation Records, 1919–1946
Records of Polarized Lights Corporation, a company that produced non-glaring headlights for motor vehicles, circa 1930s. It merged with the Polaroid Corporation in 1937.

Additional Polaroid Corporation Records, Baker Library

Polaroid Corporation Annual Reports, 1937–1996 (1937–1952 digitized)
Polaroid’s published annual reports from 1937 to 1996 included in Series I: Administrative Records. Annual reports typically include a letter to shareholders written by Edwin H. Land, a review of the year’s research efforts, manufacturing operations, new product development, advertising and marketing strategies, and year-end financial statements.

Polaroid Corporation Research Laboratory Notebooks, 1951–2002
Notebooks associated with routine research and development activities, circa 1950s to 2002, containing detailed historical laboratory records created by Polaroid image scientists, organic chemists, polymer chemists, and physicists in the photometric laboratory in the research and development department.

Polaroid Corporation Records Held by the Polaroid Bankruptcy Estate, 1951–2005
Board of Directors agendas and minutes, shareholder meeting records, legal records, and patents.

A. David Mazzone Notes on the Polaroid-Kodak Lawsuit, 1989–1991
Notes kept by United States District Court Judge A. David Mazzone while presiding over the trial phase of the Polaroid vs. Kodak patent infringement lawsuit in 1989.

Alfred Bellows Papers on the Polaroid Corporation, 1947-2014
Collection of papers, ephemera, newspaper clippings, printed publications, and an autobiography by Alfred Bellows, a former Polaroid Corporation engineer involved in the development of the SX-70 color camera in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bibliography

Adams, Ansel. Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.

Adams, Ansel. “Playboy Interview: Ansel Adams.” Playboy (May 1983): 67–87, 222–226.

Adams, Ansel. Polaroid Land Photography. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1963.

Adams, Ansel. Polaroid Land Photography Manual: A Technical Handbook. New York: Morgan and Morgan, 1963.

Adams, Ansel, and Mary Street Alinder. Ansel Adams: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.Adams, Ansel, and E. H. Land. Singular Images. New York: Morgan and Morgan, 1974.

Alinder, Mary Street. “Ansel Adams’ Polaroid Collection, Part I.” The Polaroid Newsletter for Photographic Education 4, no. 2 (Spring 1987): 1–3.

Bello, Francis. “The Magic That Made Polaroid.” Fortune (April 1959): 124–127, 154–157.

Bonanos, Christopher. Instant: The Story of Polaroid. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012.

Buse, Peter. “Polaroid, Aperture and Ansel Adams: Rethinking the Industry-Aesthetics Divide,” History of Photography 3, no. 4 (2009): 354–369.

Buse, Peter. The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Fierstein, Ronald K. A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2015.

Hitchcock, Barbara P. “Remembering a Grand Experiment: A Personal History of the Polaroid Collection,” in Rebekka Reuter et al., The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology, 96–102. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017.

Hitchcock, Barbara P. “When Land Met Adams,” in Steve Cist, editor, The Polaroid Book: Selections from the Polaroid Collections of Photography, 24–29. Köln and Los Angeles: Taschen, 2005.

Juntunen, Arthur. “Land Camera Gets Black-White Film.” The Detroit Free Press, May 11, 1950.

Land, Edwin H. “A New One-Step Photographic Process.” Journal of the Optical Society of America 37, no. 2 (1947): 61–77.

Land, Edwin H. “From Imbibition to Exhibition: A Reconstruction of a New Photographic Process.” Journal of the Franklin Institute 263, no. 2 (February 1957): 121–128.

Land, Edwin H. “On Some Conditions for Scientific Profundity in Industrial Research.” Charles F. Kettering Award Address, June 17, 1965, Washington, D.C.

Land, Edwin H. “One-Step Photography,” Paper delivered to the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, May 31, 1949. The Photographic Journal (January 1950): 7–15.

McElheny, Victor K. Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land. Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1998.

“Polaroid-Land Process Now Has Black and White.” U.S. Camera 13, no. 8 (August 1950): 42–43.

Quick, Jennifer. “Designing Polaroid: Ansel Adams as Consultant.” American Art 35, no. 1 (2021): 31–39.

Reuter, Rebekka, William A. Ewing, Barbara Hitchcock, Deborah G. Douglas, Gary Van Zante, Christopher Bonanos, Peter Buse, Dennis Jelonnek, John Rohrbach, and Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017.

Sichel, Kim. “Photography in Boston, 1955–1970: Science and Mysticism,” in Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Gillian Nagler, and DeCordova Museum Sculpture Park, Photography in Boston, 1955–1985, 3–25. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.

Smith Alumnae Quarterly (November): 60. North Adams, Mass.: Excelsior Printing Company, 1969.

Smith College Bulletin, The Catalogue Number 1952–1953, Smith College, with an Announcement of Courses for 1953–1954, series 47, no. 2: 49–53. Northampton, Mass.: Smith College, 1953.

Smith College News. Press Release (October 18, 1968): 1.

Wensberg, Peter C. Land’s Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.