Katrina Thomas Collection

The Katrina Thomas Ethnic Wedding Photograph Collection consists of over 800 photographs of cultural 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 cultural 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 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.