Over There, Over Everywhere: The Aero Service Collection at the Library Company of Philadelphia

Street of Blondefontaine- Dec. 26-1918. Gelatin silver photograph. Library Company of Philadelphia

The following post is by guest blogger Carl H. Winnefeld, Jr. who is mining our Aero Service Collection looking for photographs of company personnel and aircraft.  A former Aero Service employee, Winnefeld and colleagues are compiling this information for a website and potential future publication. Winnefeld stumbled upon the above photograph inspiring him to write the blog post below. The blog post was originally written for the World War One blog, Home Before the Leaves Fall. The Home Before the Leaves Fall website is an initiative of multiple cultural institutions in the Delaware Valley to digitize and make available their holdings related to World War One.  The Library Company’s World War One collection can be found on ImPAC, the Library Company’s digital collections catalog, with the collection broken down into two sub-categories: World War One Posters and Photographs and Ephemera.  In addition, a selection of World War One posters appear on Flickr.

The Aero Service Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia contains material (primarily photographic images) acquired by the Aero Service Corporation and its president, Virgil Kauffman over a 40 year time frame. Aero Service was founded in Philadelphia in 1919 as Pennsylvania Aero Service and remained based in Philadelphia until 1973 when it relocated to Houston, Texas. The company operated on a worldwide basis.  Its primary business was aerial photography, photogrammetry (the use of photography in surveying and mapping to measure distances between objects), and remote sensing using an airborne magnetometer. In 1934 Aero Service worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority to map areas where the TVA was responsible for developing watershed resources. In 1947 Aero Service flew one of the first large airborne magnetometer surveys using Shoran navigation control over the Bahamas.

Jules Schick Photography, Virgil Kauffman, gelatin silver photograph, March 18, 1958. Library Company of Philadelphia

The Aero Service Corporation’s longtime president Virgil Kauffman (portrait above) was born in Yardley Pennsylvania in 1898. With the onset of World War I, Kauffman was assigned to the Corps of Engineers Photography School. The Army Air Corps utilized aerial photography for intelligence during the war and Kauffman was assigned to participate in the aerial reconnaissance missions, making this his introduction to aerial photography. After the war, he joined Aero Service in 1924 and directed the company from 1927 to 1961. His contributions to the scientific and technical world were wide ranging and significant. In 1966 he funded the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal to be awarded by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists for outstanding contribution in geophysical exploration.  Kauffman was associated with the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University from 1961 to 1985. Virgil Kauffman passed away in 1985.

The first image above shows the village of Blondefontaine, France in the winter of 1918 immediately after the war. Blondefontaine is located 285 kilometers. southeast of Paris. The village today looks very much as it did in 1918. The image below is a description of the scene written by Virgil Kauffman. The photograph provides a view of just how grim it must have been during the war years in France.

Verso of Street of Blondefontaine- Dec. 26-1918. Library Company of Philadelphia

Carl H. Winnefeld, Jr.

Guest Blogger for the Library Company of Philadelphia