David D. Hatfield Aviation Photograph Collection

The David D. Hatfield Aviation Photograph Collection, one component of Hatfield's larger collection on aviation history, consists of photographic materials documenting the history of aviation and aerospace in the 20th century. The collection is arranged alphabetically by format, although the collection has not been fully processed and some materials remain unorganized.

The bulk of the collection relates to aviation, although a few space-related subjects are represented. Commercial and general aviation subjects are more prominent than military aviation, and aircraft, aviators, and other aviation subjects with ties to California are a strength of the collection. The collection spans the better part of the twentieth century, but the Golden Age of Aviation in the 1920s-1930s is particularly well represented. The collection includes a variety of photographic formats, including black-and-white prints, hand-tinted prints, negatives of various sizes, glass plates, slides, albums, as well as a card index. Hatfield acquired and copied the images from a variety of sources; he likely was not the photographer of many or any of the images. The original sources of the images are rarely identified.