Max Shaffer collection

The Max Shaffer collection consists mostly of Northwest Ohio-related photographs collected by Shaffer, the bulk of which depict workers in the petroleum industry in the Cygnet area in Wood County during the approximate period 1886-1924.

The focus of the collection is the work crews that constructed the large oil storage tanks in the petroleum fields, rather than the exploration or drilling activities of the oil and gas industry. The few photographs in the collection with identified locations document movement of the workers as the new fields opened up in such places as Leeper, Pa.; Stoy and Bridgeport, Ill.; La Plata, Mo.; Chelsea, Oklahoma; and Cygnet and Findlay, Ohio. Only a few individuals in the pictures are identified, but one person, E.D. Pryer, appears in several photographs, covering a span of around twenty years. In 1904 (Chelsea, Oklahoma) and 1905 (La Plata, Mo.), he appears as a young member of the tank construction crew. In an undated photo from around 1920, he is obviously the crew foreman or supervisor, wearing a suit and smoking a pipe.

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The Max Shaffer collection is also available to view onsite at the Center for Archival Collections. View the full collection finding aid.