Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company records
Collection Organization
The bulk of the collection is made up of photographs documenting nearly a century of marine construction work conducted by Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company (GLD&D). A wide range of projects is represented, from building seawalls for residential customers to conducting large-scale land reclamamtion operations for locations both foreign and domestic, including Lincoln Park, Chicago; Hart Miller Island, MD; and Doha, Qatar. Most of the jobs undertaken by GLD&D up until the mid-20th century were centered around Chicago and Wisconsin, as the corporate headquarters of the company was located there until the late 20th century. As a result, projects in the Chicago area are especially well-documented. Significant works include land reclamation for the extension of Lincoln Park and the building of Lake Shore Drive, bridge superstructures for the Michigan and Torrence Avenue Bridges, and the straightening of the South Branch of the Chicago River. Most of the images were created by professional studios and by staff photographers of GLD&D, resulting in excellent quality. Photographs span 1906-1998.
Another portion of the collection contains a run of corporate records, most notably the Board of Directors Minute Book for 1905-1918. Other records include calendars, pubilcations, publicity and marketing, case histories, and lists of projects.
The final portion of the collection consists of films and videotapes of GLD&D projects. The videotapes are copies of the content on 35mm films found in the collection. For the 8 and 16mm films and MiniDV tapes in the collection, the content is mostly unknown since they cannot be accessed. Several additional films are present on DVD, but it is unclear whether this duplicates any of the preivously mentioned material. Dates are roughly 1929-1961.