Katrina Thomas Ethnic Wedding Photograph CollectionBryn Mawr College
The Katrina Thomas Ethnic Wedding Photograph Collection consists of over 800 photographs of ethnic weddings in
the United States. From 1965-2001, freelance photographer Katrina Thomas undertook the unique project of
documenting the ways in which immigrant groups maintain and adapt wedding practices in the United States. In 1987
her photographs were featured in Something Old, Something New: Ethnic Weddings in America, a traveling
exhibit co-sponsored by Modern Bride Magazine and the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia.
The collection contains wedding photographs of more than 70 ethnic and religious groups that have immigrated
from Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. The majority of the weddings took place on the
East Coast. However, Thomas also documented weddings in the Midwest (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee),
on the West Coast (California and Oregon), and in the Southwest (Arizona). Many of the photographs are of more
recent immigrant families, although the collection also includes wedding photographs of individuals from older
immigrant communities who have maintained or revived ethnic wedding traditions. Examples of ethnic and religious
groups featured in the photograph collection include Afghan, Asante, Chaldean, Chinese, Greek, Hasidic, Hmong,
Korean, Lithuanian, Mexican, Mien, Polish Gorale, Puerto Rican, Russian Old Believer, Tibetan, Yoruba, and
Zoroastrian.
Thomas first became familiar with American ethnic communities when visiting New York boroughs while
volunteering for the 1965 mayoral campaign of John Lindsay. Her subsequent interest coincided with the 1965
amendment of US immigration law, which expanded the possibility of immigration to many new ethnic groups. After
photographing ethnic events and festivals primarily in New York City and its environs, Thomas narrowed her
interest to documenting weddings, focusing on individuals and groups that continue to practice wedding traditions
of their home countries. This project became an absorbing interest for 40 years.
Thomas photographed the majority of her wedding photographs in black and white, believing that .black and
white captures better the form and emotional content of the event. Color, in seducing the eye, often obscures
picture content and dilutes impact. (Thomas 1987). Despite the predominance of black and white images, the
collection is augmented by color photographs, which demonstrate the richness and color of traditional wedding
costumes.
Katrina Thomas is an alumna of Bryn Mawr College (1949). In the 1950s and 1960s she held a variety of jobs in
New York City, spent a year in Rome, and returned to work for an architectural firm. On the side, she took
photographs of children and families, and published a children.s book, My Skyscraper City: A Child.s View of
New York (1963). In 1965 Thomas became a full-time, freelance photographer. She photographed Mayor Lindsay.s
city programs designed to quell race riots in volatile neighborhoods, and published two additional children.s
books, Chito (1968), and Oh, Boy! Babies! (1980). For 22 years Aramco World hired Thomas to
photograph in both the Middle East and the U.S. Her pictures have appeared in Time, Newsweek, and
publications of the US Information Agency.
Thomas gave the early documentation of ethnic neighborhoods and festivals as a collection to City Lore, Inc.
and in 2007 she donated her ethnic wedding photographs to Bryn Mawr College. The collection also includes
negatives, correspondence, research materials, field notes, and Thomas.s published works. Collection resources
include a database with 800 thumbnail images from the collection and captions for each photograph. The database
is searchable by ethnic group, location, year, subject categories, as well as various phases of wedding
ceremonies and preparations.
