Ewing Galloway
Ewing Galloway (6 Dec. 1880, Little Dixie, Kentucky, US — 23 June 1953, Henderson, KY) was an American journalist and the founder of the Galloway [or Ewing Galloway] Agency in 1920, the largest photo agency in America before World War II.
First a lawyer and city prosecutor in Kentucky, he switched for journalism after a stint at a local newspaper, The Henderson Gleaner. Completing a course in journalism at Columbia University, he worked in New York City, Chicago, Hawaii. In New York, he became assistant editor at Literary Digest magazine, and later photography editor for the popular Collier’s magazine. He also experienced the world of photojournalism by joining Underwood & Underwood before launching his own stock photography company in 1920, with head office located on 28th Street in Manhattan.
1) An old Chinese man, n.d., stock photo Ewing Galloway (Agency). 2) Stock photo of couple (hired models) dancing the twist, 1950s [Ewing Galloway].
1) An old Chinese man, n.d., stock photo Ewing Galloway (Agency). 2) Stock photo of couple (hired models) dancing the twist, 1950s [Ewing Galloway].
1) An old Chinese man, n.d., stock photo Ewing Galloway (Agency). 2) Stock photo of couple (hired models) dancing the twist, 1950s [Ewing Galloway].
By 1925, Galloway had secured some 8,000 photographs in the agency’s archive, with informative photos of Asia and Africa at its core thanks to his collaboration with American traveler, photographer and filmmaker Elias Burton Holmes (8 Jan. 1870 – 22 July 1958). While pursuing his own interests — for instance documenting indigenous minorities of America -, he specialized in educational publishing, selling photos to book and magazine publishers. He developed commercial links with large publishing groups in Germany, England and the Netherlands. At the eve of World War II, Galloway Agency had offices in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, and Berlin.
Staff photographers focused on commercial photography and, after the war, on the illustration and glorification of the ‘American Way of Life”. Ewing Galloway came back to his hometown, where he owned a farm and kept writing a column titled “Kentucky on the March” for local newspapers, a freemason and a free-thinker in deeply religious US South. In typical all-American fashion, Galloway was heading to a baseball game on 18 June 1953 when he was struck by a taxicab, and died from his injuries, leaving an agency that had collected over 400,000 images.
Photos from Galloway’s collection are kept at the Library of Congress [Frank G. Carpenter collection], the Syracuse University Library, the Kentucky State Library — to which Galloway donated some 1,000 photo prints including views of the construction of the Panama Canal -, the Hagley Museum and Digital Library. In 2007, there was a retrospective exhibition on the Galloway Agency at Kresge Art Museum (University of Michigan. Rebranded the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum since July 2011).
1, 2, 3) Celebrating the American Way of Life — Family gathering in front of a TV set, a majorette blowing her trumpet, supermarket shopping [Ewing Galloway stock photos from the 1950s]. 4) A group of passengers boarding an American Airlines Transport plane at night at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Angeles, CA, 1940s, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, stock photo Ewing Galloway Agency [repository: Hagley Museum and Digital Library].
1, 2, 3) Celebrating the American Way of Life — Family gathering in front of a TV set, a majorette blowing her trumpet, supermarket shopping [Ewing Galloway stock photos from the 1950s]. 4) A group of passengers boarding an American Airlines Transport plane at night at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Angeles, CA, 1940s, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, stock photo Ewing Galloway Agency [repository: Hagley Museum and Digital Library].
1, 2, 3) Celebrating the American Way of Life — Family gathering in front of a TV set, a majorette blowing her trumpet, supermarket shopping [Ewing Galloway stock photos from the 1950s]. 4) A group of passengers boarding an American Airlines Transport plane at night at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Angeles, CA, 1940s, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, stock photo Ewing Galloway Agency [repository: Hagley Museum and Digital Library].
1, 2, 3) Celebrating the American Way of Life — Family gathering in front of a TV set, a majorette blowing her trumpet, supermarket shopping [Ewing Galloway stock photos from the 1950s]. 4) A group of passengers boarding an American Airlines Transport plane at night at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Angeles, CA, 1940s, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, stock photo Ewing Galloway Agency [repository: Hagley Museum and Digital Library].
1, 2, 3) Celebrating the American Way of Life — Family gathering in front of a TV set, a majorette blowing her trumpet, supermarket shopping [Ewing Galloway stock photos from the 1950s]. 4) A group of passengers boarding an American Airlines Transport plane at night at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Angeles, CA, 1940s, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, stock photo Ewing Galloway Agency [repository: Hagley Museum and Digital Library].