Jimmie A. Dodd Photograph Collection, 1937-1974

Biographical Note

James Andrew Dodd was born in Houston, Texas on July 20, 1917, to Ellen Belle Horan and Earle Bartholomew Dodd. After graduating from high school, he worked as a mascot for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and began taking photographs as a hobby in 1935. He later became a professional photographer when he received a $250 loan from King Ranch president Robert Kleberg, Jr. to purchase a used Auto Graphlex camera. Mr. Kleberg allowed Jimmie to work off the loan by taking photographs at the King Ranch. As a friend and employee of the Klebergs, Dodd was able to meet and photograph famous visitors to the ranch, such as Nelson Rockefeller, Zachary Scott, Joan Crawford, and Jack Dempsey, among others. From the 1930's through the 1950's, he photographed the Kleberg family, King Ranch employees, and the daily activities of ranching life.

In addition to his work for the Klebergs and the King Ranch, Dodd ran a photographic studio in Kingsville, Texas, and documented the social, cultural, political, civic, and economic life of South Texas. Besides providing a steady income, his photographs appeared in local newspapers such as the Kingsville Alert, The Alice Daily Echo, and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. He captured images from the Texas City Disaster, the opening of Houston's Shamrock Hotel, PGA tour events in Texas, the Missouri Pacific Railroad of South Texas, and the Kingsville Naval Air Station. Dodd also worked as a photographer for the Kingsville Police Department, documenting crime scenes and automobile accidents. In the 1960's, Dodd limited the focus of his business to studio photography.

He often photographed his own family, especially his niece Mary Virginia Gunter. Dodd never married, and his closest companion for many years was his Chihuahua, "Sarge." He moved to Kerrville in the early 1970's and continued working despite health problems. He died of heart failure on January 27, 1984, in Kerrville. He sold the Dodd Studio negatives to the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983.

Scope and Contents

The Jimmie Dodd Photograph Collection consists of approximately 12,500 negatives generated by Dodd during his years as a professional photographer in Kingsville, Texas. The archive includes images of the King Ranch, Texas cities and towns, celebrities, sports, wedding portraits, and freelance work for the Kingsville Police Department. In addition, the collection includes a small number of photograph prints, manuscript materials and artifacts.

Restrictions

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

There are no use restrictions on this collection. Publisher is responsible for complying with copyright law.

Related Materials

Separated Material

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Jimmie A. Dodd Photograph Collection, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

Accession Number(s)

1983-176; 2011-152; 2020-091

Processing Information

This collection was processed by archives staff, 2000.

Subsequent revisions made by Halley Grogan in May 2011 and Amy Bowman in February 2012.

Basic processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Briscoe Center's "History Revealed: Bringing Collections to Light" project, 2009-2011.

OCLC Number

651971867

Archivist's Note

The inventory has been compiled from names and subjects ascribed to the individual packets of negatives by Dodd.

Detailed Description of the Collection