A practioner of the shell game, with enticing paper money © Dick Whittington Collection

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) is sponsoring the digitization of at-risk negatives in the University of Southern California alumnus Wayne "Dick" Whittington's photography studio collection.

Wayne Whittington assumed the professional name “Dick" Whittington. Inspiration for the name came from a children’s book character who was savvy enough to leverage his cat’s natural passion for rats and pest extermination and rose to fortune and fame in London.  From 1924 to 1987, his commercial photography studio was the largest in the Los Angeles area. Whittington attended Manual Arts High School and USC was not only his alma mater but a valued client. The "Trav-L-Lab," his unique film-processing-multipurpose vehicle, could be seen whizzing past the USC campus. 

Using the "Lab's" 30-foot ladder to gain height, his photographers (who numbered up to 27 in the 1930s) documented horse races, parades and downtown Los Angeles. They produced advertisement images for newspapers and for groceries, shot pictures at conventions and conferences, showed up at ship launches and maiden voyages of prototype airplanes. They even used a blimp when aerial shots were needed.

The Trav-L-Lab at Santa Anita Park, with ladder extended © Dick Whittington Collection

The man himself, Wayne "Dick" Whittington, 1941 © Dick Whittington Collection

They took photographs of everything on and in the ground that interested them from agricultural crops to the feet of people walking in downtown Los Angeles. One recurring theme of the photos was Money, unsurprising due to “Dick’s” professional moniker.

A practioner of the shell game, with enticing paper money © Dick Whittington Collection

A strike at Vultee Aircraft (1940): one picket sign says “$39,000,000 Who, Me? My pay is a whole four-bits” 

The betting windows at the Santa Anita Racetrack--note the $2 window © Dick Whittington Collection

In some of my favorite images from the Whittington collection models wore costumes and portrayed characters. 

These 3 guys just pulled off a heist, right? No, the 2 cloth bags contain payroll cash, and the men with guns are guards. © Dick Whittington Collection 

The collection is a joy to create metadata for, the images are beautiful and the discoveries are plentiful.

Before joining the USC Libraries as a faculty metadata librarian on the NHPRC-supported Whittington project, Arel Lucas worked as a metadata specialist at San Diego State University, writing descriptions and collaborating on student hiring and supervision for scanning and metadata for photograph, slide, and document collections, including those from Special Collections and University Archives and community archives.