DETAILED BIOGRAPHY
Origins and Education
Personal
Born Boston, MA, October 9, 1932
Father, Roger Stanley Plowden, 1902–1960
Mother, Mary Russell Butler, 1902–2001
Lived in New York City and Putney, VT, 1938-1962
Married Pleasance Coggeshall June 20, 1962; divorced 1976
John Stanley Plowden born June 22, 1965
Daniel Coggeshall Plowden born March 2, 1967
Lived in Sea Cliff, Long Island, 1969–1976
Married Sandra Oakes Schoellkopf July 8, 1977
Moved to Winnetka, IL, 1978
Philip Schoellkopf Plowden born August 30, 1979
Karen Calkins Plowden born January 12, 1982
Education
The Putney School, Putney, VT, Class of 1951
Yale University, New Haven, CT, BA Economics, 1955
Private Study with Minor White and Nathan Lyons, Rochester, NY, 1959–1960
Selected Awards
Honored Image Maker Award
for a lifetime of distinguished achievement in photography presented by the Society of Photographic Education
Midwest Region, 2002
The Railroad History Award for “Significant Contribution to the Photographic Interpretation of
North America’s Railroading History,” 1989
The Wilson Hicks Award for “Outstanding Contributions to
Still Photography,” 1977
The Benjamin Barondess Award for Lincoln and His America, 1971
“I have been beset, with a sense of urgency to record those parts of our heritage which seem to be receding as quickly as the view from the rear of a speeding train. I fear that we are eradicating the evidence of our past accomplishments so quickly that in time we may well lose the sense of who we are.”
—David Plowden (from the Beinecke Library website)
David Plowden’s photographs are represented in the permanent collections of numerous institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.
He has received numerous fellowships, grants and awards including a National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution Research Grant, and Guggenheim Fellowship.
Academic and Professional Appointments
Professional
Great Northern Railway, Willmar, MN, 1955–1956
American Express Company, New York, NY, 1957–1958
Assistant to O. Winston Link, New York, NY, 1958–1959
Assistant to George Meluso, New York, NY, 1960–1962
Self-employed photographer and writer, 1962–present
Academic Positions
Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design, Chicago, IL
- Visiting Associate Professor, 1978–1980
- Associate Professor, 1980–1985 (awarded tenure 1982)
University of Iowa, School of Journalism, Iowa City, IA
- Lecturer, 1985–1988
University of Baltimore, Institute for Publications Design, Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, Baltimore, MD
- Artist-in-Residence and Senior Fellow, 1990–1991
Grand Valley State University, Communications Arts and Humanities Division, Allendale, MI
-Visiting Professor, 1988–1990, 1991–2007
Selected Fellowships, Grants and Commissions
Humanities Iowa, 2012
Iowa Humanities Board and National Endowment for the Humanities, 1987–1988
State Historical Society of Iowa, 1987–1988
Baird Foundation, 1987
Seymour H. Knox Foundation, 1987
Chicago Historical Society, 1980–1984
The New York Botanical Gardens and Society, 1978
H. E. Butt Foundation, 1977
Department of Transportation and the Smithsonian Institution, 1975–1976
Smithsonian Institution Research Grant, 1970–1971
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 1968
New York State Council on the Arts, 1965, 1967
The Committee of Advisors to the Federal Highway Administrator, 1966–1967
The Commission on Architecture and Urban Design, Binghamton, NY, 1966
Columbia University, New York, NY, 1962–1966
Selected photographs in Permanent Collections
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery, UMBC, Baltimore, MD
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, New Haven, CT
The Brinton Museum, Big Horn, WY
Buffalo AKG Museum, Buffalo, NY
Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo, NY
Burchfield Art Center, Buffalo, NY
California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Chicago History Museum, Chicago, IL
Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA
George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY
Humanities Iowa, Iowa City, IA
International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, DC
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
State Historical Museum of Iowa, Des Moines, IA
University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS