Max Shaffer photograph collection

The Max Shaffer Collection consists of photographs of workers in the petroleum industry, particulary centered on scenes in the Cygnet, Ohio area. The focus of the collection is the work crews that constructed the large oil storage tanks in the petroleum fields, rather than the exploration or drilling activities of the oil and gas industry.

The few photographs in the collection with identified locations document movement of the workers as the new fields opened up in such places as Leeper, Pa.; Stoy and Bridgeport, Ill.; LaPlata, Mo.; Chelsea, Indian Territory (Oklahoma); and Cygnet and Findlay, Ohio. Only a few individuals in the pictures are identified, but one person, E.D. Pryer, appears in 13 photographs, covering a span of around twenty years. In 1904 Chelsea, Oklahoma and 1905 LaPlata, Mo., he appears as a young member of the tank construction crew. In an undated photo from around 1920, he is obviously the crew foreman or supervisor, wearing a suit and smoking a pipe.

A part of the collection contains copy prints made by Paul Herringshaw of original photographs retained by Max Shaffer. These photographs are primarily of the massive fires in Cygnet, Ohio around 1912 when lightning ignited some oil storage tanks. Also included in this group are production and drilling pictures, some of which appeared in The Book of Ohio.

Many of the images in this collection were used by Joseph Arpad in his television documentary, The Ohio gas and oil boom, produced in 1984. The production slides for this program, including the Shafer Collection items and related photographs from other sources, form a separate collection in the Center for Archival Collections holdings.