Dr. R. S. Wallace presented this set of pictures, acquired through his son, as a gift to Reese Library in 1988. It is not known how Dr. Wallace’s son acquired these photographs whether via gift or purchase. Mr. Matthew Aitken (1927-December 30, 1993) was born in Dorchester Massachusetts and made a career in the United States Army. His enlistment, which spanned both the Korean and the Vietnam War started his career as a professional photographer. Having started photography as a hobby in 1950, Aitken decided to develop it as a career and was enrolled in the Army photography school at Fort Monmouth New Jersey. The photographs in this collection were probably taken during an assignment to Germany. He was assigned to Fort Gordon in 1959 as a photographer and photography instructor and remained there for eight years.  After his Army career he was employed at the Medical College of Georgia Hospital as a photographic laboratory technician and as a photography instructor at Fort Gordon and Augusta Technical College. Aitken’s work was exhibited at the University of South Carolina, the Medical College of Georgia, the Unitarian Church of Augusta and the Gibbs Memorial Library of the East Central Georgia Regional Library.  These photographs were believed to have been exhibited at the Medical College of Georgia. Aiken was quoted in an October 29, 1987 Augusta Chronicle article to explain his preference for scenic photography.  “I used to take pictures of everything from grip and grin autopsies to tea parties…I’m mot much of a people photographer because I did so much of that in the army….I like static things – things that are quiet, peaceful.”

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