Phil Primack New England Country Fair Collection
name: label: Creator
content: Primack, Phil
topic: label: Topic
content: Fairs
label: Topic
content: Fairs -- New England
label: Topic
content: Fairs -- New England -- Directories
label: Topic
content: Fairs -- United States
label: Topic
content: Fairs -- Photographs
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Collection donated by Philip Primack February 14, 2020.
creator: label: Creator
content: Primack, Phil
setName: label: See more items in
content: Phil Primack New England Country Fair Collection
abstract: label: Summary
content: Black and white photographs, photographic negatives, contact sheets, color slides, and ephemera documenting selected New England country fairs, photographed and collected by Phil Primack.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: The information for this biography was supplied by the donor, Phil Primack, in February 2020.

Philip N. Primack was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts on May 1, 1948 the son of Dr. Joseph E. Primack, DDS and Celia Piltch Primack. While attending high school in Haverhill, he took a sumer job operating midway games at the amusement park in nearby Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. The park's owner also owned a traveling carnival, Dean & Flynn Fiesta Shows, and Primack worked on its midway at fairs and carnivals across New England while attending Tufts University, from which he graduated with a BA in 1970.

At Tufts, Primack edited the campus newspaper, launching him on a decades-long reporting and writing career. After graduation, he went to work from 1970 to 1973 for The Mountain Eagle, a weekly newspaper in the eastern Kentucky coalfields. He maintained working and other ties to the Eagle for much of the rest of the 1970s, sometimes taking time off to pursue freelance work and other projects. During the 1970s, Primack oaccasionally returned to the midway to support the meager wages of freelance writing.

In 1983, Primack went to work for North Shore: Sunday, a weekly in Massachusetts and, from 1988 to 1996, for The Boston Herald. In addition to his positions as a staff reporter, Primack has written extensively for a wide range of regional and national publications, including The Boston Globe, Commonwealth Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Monthly, The Nation, and Boston Magazine. His photography has been included in some of these publications and other outlets, including articles he has written for in-flight airline magazines.

Primack researched, wrote and took photographs for his book, New England Country Fair (Globe Pequot Press, 1981) with the bulk of the images taken between 1975 and 1980. While the book arose from Primack's midway experiences, it covers the full gamut of the country fair experience from that era, including 4-H goat judging, blue-ribbon produce, sideshows, horse racing, beauty pageants, and additional subjects. Studs Terkel wrote about the book, ". . . captures the fine feeling of small-town Yankee American gently showing off."

Primack has worked as a speech writer and policy aide to elected officials and agencies at the state and federal levels and as a consultant, editor, writer, and researcher for various organizations and non-profits, including the Ford Foundation, The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and the Barr Foundation. He has also taught journalism courses at Tufts University, Boston University, Northeastern University, and other institutions. In addition to his BA in political science from Tufts, he earned a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1987.

Primack continues pursuing writing projects and resides in Medford, Massachusetts.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: .66 Cubic feet (3 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1978-1983, undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1497
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Audio cassettes
label: Type
content: Black-and-white negatives
label: Type
content: Contact sheets
label: Type
content: Cookbooks
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Color slides
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is divided into three series.

Series 1: Notes, Interviews, Publications, and Ephemera, 1978-1983, undated

Series 2: Black and White Photographs, Photographic Negatives, Contact Sheets, and Color Slides, 1978-1980, undated

Series 3: Audio, undated
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., archivist, October 2021; supervised by Vanessa Broussard Simmons, archivist.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Audio cassettes -- 1980-1990
label: Genre/Form
content: Black-and-white negatives
label: Genre/Form
content: Contact sheets -- 1980-1990
label: Genre/Form
content: Cookbooks -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- Black-and-white photoprints
label: Genre/Form
content: Color slides -- 1970-1990
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection contains original notes, interviews, collected ephemera, black and white photographs, photograpic negatives, contact sheets, and color slides, conducted, gathered, and taken by Phil Primack in support of the writing of his book New England Country Fair!. The material centers on country fairs in the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials at Other Organizations

Berea College, Special Collections and Archives

Phil Primack Photographs and Papers, 1964-2000

This collection is comprised of photographs, correspondence, writings, interviews and subject files of Phil Primack.