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Fonds/Collection Description

Title Croton Studio fonds
Description Level Fonds
Fonds No. IH 2011.1
Creator Croton Studio
Material Type graphic material
Date Range 1949-1965
Title Source Title based on content of fonds.
Physical Description ca. 20,000 b&w and col, negatives
History/Biographical Croton Studio of New Westminster was established by brothers Don F. and Roy M. LeBlanc. In 1947 Don LeBlanc and his wife Dorothy arrived in New Westminster, and took up residence at 1011 Eighth Avenue. In 1948 Roy and his wife Violet joined him there. Croton Studio first appears in 1949, located at 911 Twelfth Street. One or both of the brothers were owners of the business at this time. Around 1960 the studio moved to 7155 Kingsway in Burnaby. By 1967 the business had been incorporated and the name changed to Croton Studios Ltd. Don LeBlanc was owner and had moved his residence to 116 East Sixth Avenue. In 1972 a Croton photographer, Bob Dibble, bought the business when Don LeBlanc retired. Dibble owned the business until his death in 1979.
Scope & Content The scope of the fonds includes photographs ordered by individuals, associations, businesses, and other organizations. Croton's customers were located in New Westminster and also in neighbouring cities.
Arrangement When the archives received the fonds, it consisted of over 4000 envelopes, generally containing multiple negatives. In the 1980s, archives staff sorted the envelopes into rough groupings by type of content, customer, or location. However, the original filing system was not recorded at this time. However, many of the envelopes, but not all, had a number typed on it by the creator and these numbers have been recorded in the database records. In many cases, the customer's name, description of the photo shoot, and the date and year were typed on the envelope as well. For arrangement purposes, each envelope has been treated as a file. The file titles and dates have been copied from the envelopes. Thus the file title can be two parts with the first part being the name of the customer and the second being details of the photo shoot. The date and year have also been used, unless this has been found to be obviously incorrect. In some cases, envelopes have incomplete information and the file titles will reflect this. Also not all of the envelopes have dates typed on them. Each file of photographs has been assigned a prefix or base photo number assigned to it. The base numbers currently run from IHP10010 to IHP14071. The individual photos within the file have been assigned consecutive three digit sub-numbers. -001,-002, etc. Several years ago, the archives completed an inventory of the envelopes by recording the data on the envelopes. As time permits, the photographs will be scanned and re-housed, item and file-level descriptions will be created and uploaded to the public database.
Accession No. IH 2011.1
Name Access Croton Studio