Cranbrook Photograph Collection is visual documentation of the people, places, and things that make up Cranbrook Educational Community. It encompasses not only its founding family, led by George G. and Ellen S. Booth, but the many artists, scientists, teachers, students, staff, and visitors that have worked, created, played, and discovered here. Images of its built and natural environment record it's early days as Bloomfield Hills farmland through its many evolutions, including the construction of its iconic institutions by architects Albert Kahn and Eliel Saarinen. From school classrooms, art studios, homes and gardens, and two museums, photographs also document collections, decorative arts, furnishings, artworks, cultural objects, and more found in building and grounds across the Cranbrook campus.

The collection contains over 500,000 still images on glass, film, and paper. These negatives, prints, and transparencies were primarily produced by staff photographers from 1931-1970, and various program area faculty and staff (Institute of Science, Academy of Art, Art Museum, Schools) in the course of business, or by photographers-for-hire. It is an artificial ongoing collection.

Cranbrook's founding family and all Cranbrook programmatic divisions and affiliations are well-represented, including the Foundation, Academy of Art, Institute of Science, Christ Church, Brookside School, Cranbrook Educational Community, Cranbrook Estate, Cranbrook School, Horizons-Upward Bound, Kingswood School, Middle Schools, Cranbrook Kingswood School, Summer Institute, Summer Theatre, and St. Dunstan's Theater.

While the vast majority of the images pertain specifically to Cranbrook, from its development as a family estate to a center of art, science, and education, there are activities, events, and art and architecture projects outside of Cranbrook contained within the collection. Predominately, these are Booth Family images, including business and recreational activities, as well as works and sites by artists and architects closely affiliated with Cranbrook, such as the Saarinen Family and Carl Milles.

Series I: Prints, 1920s-

Photographic prints on paper, some are access copies made from photographs in the Negatives Series. A substantial amount of the series covers both the Academy of Art and the Institute of Science, though every program area is featured to some extent, as is some of the history and development of the Cranbrook Community.

Subseries 1: Academy of Art contains activities, events, people, places, and faculty and student works. It covers both the Academy and the Art Museum.

Subseries 2: Christ Church Cranbrook contains activites, events, people, and places during the time the Church was formally affiliated with the Cranbrook Foundation.

Subseries 3: Educational Community contains activities, events, people, and places primarily from the time of its inception as the central governing administrative body of Cranbrook in 1973, although earlier campus-wide images may be interspersed.

Subseries 4: Foundation contains activites, events, auxiliary organizations, departments, people, and places from its inception in 1927 to it dissolution in the early 1970s.

Subseries 5: Institute of Science contains activities, events, classes, exhibits, people, places, and research conducted by staff.

Subseries 6: Local History and General Information contain affiliated groups and people, images from local newspapers, many of which were owned by the Booth Family, and related places significant to Cranbrook history.

Subseries 7: Schools contains activities, events, classes, clubs, committees, people, and places at Cranbrook School (for boys), Kingswood School (for girls), Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, Brookside School, Middle School for Boys, Middle School for Girls, and Vaughn School (Birmingham Public School).

Series II: Negatives, 1860-2000

The negatives comprise the fullest series within the Cranbrook Photograph Collection, encompassing the original output on film, created by staff photographers, faculty, and others. Some negatives correspond to access copies found within the Prints Series. Alpha-numeric numbers in parentheses for each series denote original numbering system established by Cranbrook staff photographers and continued by Cranbrook Archives.

Subseries 1: Academy of Art (AA1-AA3229), 1944-1974. Predominately images by Harvey Croze. Includes activities, events, classes, exhibitions, people, Academy and Museum building and grounds, sports, and faculty and student works.

Subseries 2: Brookside School (B1 - B214B), 1932-1974. Photographers include Harvey Croze, Harold Smart, and George Hance. Images include activites, events, people, school building and grounds, and sports.

Subseries 3: Christ Church Cranbrook (CS1 - CS348), 1944-1974. Photographers include Harvey Croze. Images document activities, events, classes, people, and the Church building and grounds.

Subseries 4: Cranbrook School (CR1 - CR4107), 1944-1976. Photographer is unrecorded, but likely Harvey Croze. Images document activities, events, classes, people, school buildings and grounds, and sports.

Subseries 5: Educational Community (CEC1 - CEC5944), 1830s-2000. Photographers include Harvey Croze, Max Habrecht, Edmund Pratt, Henry Leung, Balthazar Korab, Stephen Farr Booth, Richard Hirneisen, Christina Capetillo, and Paul Erickson, among many others. The broadest and most comprehensive series, it documents all aspects of Cranbrook, its founding family, and associated projects (mainly architectural) outside of Cranbrook. Images include many copy negatives of early photographs (pre-CEC formation) and many images are undated. Covers activities, events, artworks, furniture, classes, schools, people, places, sports, and printed material.

Subseries 6: Estate (E1 - E602), 1889-1994. Documents Cranbrook House and landscape, the Booth family, and some activities held at the house, such as the Cranbrook Masque. Consists mainly of original glass plate negatives from the George Gough Booth family and their film copy negatives, however, not all glass plates had copy negatives made. There are a few original film negatives from later years.

Subseries 7: Foundation (FD1 - FD331 and CC1 - CC297), 1944-1974. Most of the images are by Harvey Croze, with a few attributed to Henry Scripps Booth. Images document the Foundation or early Cranbrook Community (pre-Cranbrook Educational Community) and include activites, events, people, places, and copy negatives of early printed documents.

Subseries 8: Horizons-Upward Bound (HUB1 - HUB21), 1965-1995. Photographers are unrecorded. Images document activites, events, and people.

Subseries 9: Institute of Science (CISB319 - CISB5561, C4 - D81, and ISA-88 - IS844), 1916-1982. Photographers include various CIS staff such as Robert T. Hatt, Luella Schroeder, and Victor H. Cahalane, as well as staff photographers Richard Askew and Harvey Croze. Croze photographs are arranged and described separately, according to the orginal arrangement imposed by the photographer. Documented are activities, events, exhibits (Cranbrook and other museums), people, the Institute building and grounds, and publications. Comprising a large portion of the subseries are images of artifacts, specimens, and field research subjects.

Subseries 10: Kingswood School (KA24 - KA365, K1 - K2697, and Hance K0 - K162), 1932-1974. Early images of the newly built school, many on glass, are by George Hance. The photographer for later images (1944-1974) is not recorded but was likely Harvey Croze. Documented are activites, events, people, the school building and grounds, and sports.

Subseries 11: Numbered (2150 - 7220 and A1 - A394), 1933-1944. Photographers include J.W. Hughes, Richard Askew, Richard Raseman, Joseph Munroe, James Packard and Harvey Croze. Images document the Booth Family and their interests, as well as all areas of Cranbrook, including the Institute of Science, Academy of Art, Art Museum, and Schools.

Subseries 12: Portraits (P Series: contains P11 - P4821), 1944-1970. Photographer was Harvey Croze. Images are formalized portraits of Schools and Academy students and faculty, as well as Cranbrook staff and associated individuals.

Subseries 13: Schools Public Relations (PR1 - PR104), 1993-1995. Photographer is not recorded. Images depict Brookside School, Middle Schools, and Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School activities, events, people, buildings, and sports taken for public relations purposes.

Subseries 14: St. Dunstan's Theater (SD1 - SD19), 1946. Consists soley of images of the play "Blithe Spirit" taken by Harvey Croze.

Subseries 15: Summer Institute (SI1 - SI98), 1946-1964. Depicts activities, events, classes, and people as taken by photographer Harvey Croze.

Subseries 16: Summer Theatre (ST1 - ST417), 1944-1969. Documents activities, events, people, and play productions as taken by photographer Harvey Croze.

Series III: Transparencies, 1920-2021. Includes positive images on glass or film.

Subseries 1: Glass Lantern Slides, circa 1920s-1930s Consists of early photographs of the various campus institutions. Many were taken by architectural photographers, including The Arnold Studio, Peter Nyholm, Max Habrecht, and George Hance, for inclusion in publications, and all were originally developed in black and white. The hand-painted watercolors were done at a later time by an unknown artist(s). Although these are the earliest known color images of the campus, they should be considered works of art and are not always true to color.

Subseries 2: 35mm Film Slides, circa 1800s-2000s Many, if not all, of these images are believed to be duplicates of images found in Series I and II. Comprised of: Cranbook Early Days; Cranbrook, Kent, England; Booth and Scripps Families; Stereographs; Cranbrook House interior and exterior; Works of Art; Aerial Photography; Greek Theatre; Pavillion; Cranbrook Press Foundation; Ancillary Building in Detroit; Summer Theatre: Grounds of the Cranbrook Community; Lyon House; CIS; Christ Church; Exhibits; Brookside School; ECC; Open House; Activities; Cranbrook School buildings, faculty, academics; Kingswood School exteriors, interiors, academics, annual events, students; Marquis; Kingswood Upper School faculty, staff, academics, athletics, annual events; Middle Schools student life, academic life; Academy of Art exteriors, interiors, events, exhibits, independent artists works, student and faculty works, Roy Slade, grad student works, Eliel Saarinen, Saarinen House, and Saarinen, Swanson, and Associates.