The Miami trip did not produce any dramatic new information. The University of Miami archive was incredibly cooperative and Jeff Glickman got a really good copy photo of the negative but the negative is a third generation copy-neg and there's just not a lot of information there.
Here's the back story on the photos in the collection:
In 1995 the Leonard Albasi/Gill Family allowed the University of Miami to photograph eight small contact-print photos that, according to markings on the back, were developed on November 22, 1937. I'll post jpgs of all of the images
The university has the negatives of the photos the university took and a set of prints made from those negatives. The Leonard Albasi/Gill Family retained the original prints. So what the university has are third generation images. ( 1st generation - original negative; 2nd generation - print from original negative; 3rd generation - negative of photo of print).
Yesterday we learned that when the university gave us positive images made from the 3rd generation negs they "enhanced" them to create a "better" image. As a result, some of the detail we see on and around the patch in the image they gave us isn't really there. We were hoping that we would be able to get resolution that was better than what we gotten from the university. In fact, the best accurate image is not as good. At least the copy-photo Jeff Glickman made yesterday is an accurate copy of the 3rd generation neg - but there's just not much information there.
The Leonard Albasi/Gill family clearly valued the prints. They almost certainly still have them and possibly even the original negs. The university has no information about the family.
My speculation from studying the photos:
My guess is that Leonard Albasi took the photos and that he took them on Sunday, May 30 because:
• All eight photos seem to have been taken the same day (same people wearing same outfits).
• We know the window was still there on Saturday, May 29.
• One of the photos shows the plane taking off but it's not early morning as in the June 1 departure photos.
• There was a 1.5 hour test flight on Sunday, May 30. No test flight on Monday.
One of the photos is the famous "last farewell" shot, obviously staged. (We just have a snapshot of the print. We didn't bother to get the university to make us a digital copy because we have many copies of that shot.) However, I now wonder whether Albasi just got the same shot everyone else got because he was there - or - was Albasi a professional photographer and is this THE "last farewell" photo that has been reproduced so often?
I'd be willing to bet that Leonard Albasi is the dude in the cravat posing with his hand on the Electra cowling. That's a selfie if I ever saw one. (Negative 006)
Note that Noonan is nowhere to be seen.
I suspect that Albasi had a daughter who married a guy named Gill. After her father died she wanted to be sure her father's Amelia Earhart photos were preserved for posterity so she let the university take copy-photos.
So here's the challenge - can we find the Leonard Albasi/Gill family and possibly get access to the original prints?
We did check out the suggested PanAm boxes plus a few others suggested by the archivist in charge of that collection.
Box 211, Folder 3 - "Fred Noonan" contains only two pieces of 1986 correspondence with Japanese Capture fan Paul Rafford Jr.
Box 267, Folder 46. c.1935-1938, labeled "Navigation Instruments and Laboratory Equipment" contain only a booklet on how to use the E2 Flight Computer (basically a circular slide-rule designed for aviation use) The E6b, a later version of the same tool, is still kicking around in the bottom of many flight bags.
Folders of documents relating to the Dinner Key seaplane base 1921-1937 produced nothing of interest. A folder of aircraft photographs had some great photos of various Clippers but nothing related to Earhart.
We also visited History Miami. They have a few photos of AE from early in her flying career but the two photos that show her in Miami they have only in digital format at.
So the trip was pretty much a bust. We've had so many successes recently that we tend to forget that this is the way it usually goes. No regrets. We know more than we did and, with the Forum's help, we may still be able to find the original photos. A big thank you to Forum lurker Dr. Roger Thomas who originally discovered the collection on line and who came all the way from Texas to join me and Jeff Glickman in Miami.
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Topic: Interesting historic things about Miami - relates to 2-2-V-1 study (Read 71280 times)
