World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseAlfred T. Palmer was born in San Jose, California, United States in 1906. In 1912, his family moved to Long Beach, California, United States. In 1916, he visited Yosemite National Park, where his mother Harriet worked, for the first time; during this trip, he took a number of photographs and met photographer Ansel Adams. In the 1930s, he became the official photographer aboard ships belonging to shipping companies Dollar Line, Matson, and Moore-McCormack Line. In 1938, he traveled across the United States and took a great number of photographs documenting the every-day life of Americans. In 1940, after the European War had begun but America had not yet entered the war, Palmer was made the head of the photography department of the National Defense Advisory Commission of the newly established Office of Emergency Management. In this role, he took photographs depicting Americans hard at work, building the "Arsenal of Democracy". After the US entry into the war in 1941, he joined the newly formed Office of War Information in a similar role, aiming the build American morale through his style of photographic artistry. After the war, he became a photographer for National Geographic and produced motion pictures for the Maritime Commission, US State Department, various governments in Asia, various humanitarian organizations, and various private companies. His work had been archived with the US Library of Congress, US Department of the Interior, and various private collections. He passed away in 1993.

Alfred Palmer Timeline

Photographs

Photographs Taken by Alfred Palmer

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