Bunny Yeager collection

Collection

Bunny Yeager collection

• 1954-2015 (Creation)

~7.5 linear feet (2 record storage boxes, 3 document cases, 8 small irregular archival boxes, 1 custom preservation camera box, and 1 oversized flat newspaper box)

Born Linnea Eleanor Yeager in March 13, 1929, in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, "Bunny" gained international fame as both a model and a photographer. She moved to Miami at a young age and first attracted local interest as a model, winning several pageants and gracing the pages of popular magazines. While she was modeling, she developed a knack for designing and sewing together her own bikinis, and her style became rather prolific in the fashion circuit for many years after.

Since creating portfolios was rather expensive while Bunny was trying to break out into the modeling industry, she was motivated to learn photography and took several night classes to hone her abilities and create her own portfolios. She eventually developed her signature method of photography that allowed her to take pictures of models using natural light through the "fill flash" method. Her style helped to reinvent the genre of nude and pin-up photography, taking it from its roots of overt raunchiness and elevating it into an art form that centered around playful sensuality and provocativeness. Her photos have been featured in Playboy, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and many other big-name magazines, and she was also credited in helping to make Bettie Page into a household name as well as other famous pin-up models such as Lisa Winters. Her career also includes several self-penned books, including such titles as How I Photograph Myself, How to take Figure Photos, Photographing the Female Figure, and How I Photograph Nudes.

Bunny Yeager eventually passed away in May 25, 2014 in North Miami, but her legacy as one of the leading pioneers of pin-up photography remains. Her collection captures her eclectic history with an array of scrapbooks, correspondence, ephemera, photographs and clippings, all which illustrate her passion for her work.

The intellectual arrangement of this collection was developed by UGrow Fellow Ellen Davies, under the supervision of Manuscripts Librarian, Beatrice Skokan, 2015. The collection is arranged into six series:

Series I. Correspondence

Series II. Photographs

Series III. Audio-visual materials

Series IV. Artifacts

Series V. Newspaper clippings

Series VI. Events

This collection is open for research.

Items from this collection are kept on-campus and may be requested from the first floor Kislak Center in the Otto G. Richter Library at University of Miami. Please contact asc.library@miami.edu to request materials from this collection.

Bunny Yeager collection finding aid © 2022 University of Miami. All rights reserved. Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from Special Collections.

• English

• Latin

Collection originally purchased from Bunny Yeager, 10-08-15 (Boxes 1-14). Subsequent donations received from Edward Christin on 12-21-15 (1 print) and on 11-04-20 (Box 15).

Books that arrived with the collection have been separated for cataloging.

• Citation: Bunny Yeager collection, Special Collections, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.

This collection was processed by Ellen Davies (UGrow Fellow) 2015, and Julia Cardenas (Student Assistant) 2016, under the supervision of Yvette Yurubi (Archives Assistant) for the physical arrangement. New materials were added and finding aid edited by Yvette Yurubi (Archives Assistant), 10-25-22.

• Fashion -- Florida
• Fashion
• Photography
• Photographers -- United States

• Scrapbooks
• Photographs
• Ephemera (general object genre)
• Correspondence