Sara Maynard Clark

Sara Maynard Clark was a writer, editor, historian, and photographer. She wrote many articles and stories about Bucks County based on in-depth research of the subject matter, which ranged from macabre murders to articles on local characters spiced with anecdotes. She wrote for the New Hope, serving as the managing editor until it closed in 1935, and the Bucks County Traveler, serving as an associate editor until 1960. She also wrote articles for the New Bucks County Magazine. She worked for the Bucks County Tourist Commission and produced the Highways of History, a series of self-guided tours of Bucks County. She also put together two slide shows for the commission on historical sights in Bucks County and a tour of the gristmills and millers' homes in the area. A photographer as well, she often included her own pictures in her articles and took all the photographs of the interiors of the millers' homes. In 1960, she wrote a children's book, illustrated by Kurt Wiese called First Men in Space. Working with her husband and son (also photographers), she produced a series of photographs of Bucks County's best-known artists in the 1930s and 1940s.

Education and Training
Self taught as a photographer

Teachers and Influences
Sara Maynard worked for a newspaper in Iowa before her marriage to Harold (Hal) Clark, a journalist and photographer. Their son, Maynard Clark, was a professional photographer and filmmaker.

Connection to Bucks County
Sara Maynard married Harold (Hal) Clark in 1916. The couple moved to Bucks County in 1933 from suburban Philadelphia. Prior to Bucks County, they had lived in Kansas City, Cleveland, New York, and Chicago for Hal Clark's career in journalism. The Clarks first lived in the old house that had belonged to Edward Redfield, between the canal and the Delaware river at Center Bridge near New Hope. They later had a house in New Hope and moved to Doylestown when their New Hope house was divided into shops.

Colleagues and Affiliations
Sara Maynard Clark wrote articles for the magazine called the New Hope and and served as its managing editor until it closed in 1935. She wrote and photographed for the Bucks County Traveler and was an associate editor until 1960. She also wrote articles for the New Bucks County Magazine. She put together two slide shows for the commission on historical sights in Bucks County and a tour of the gristmills and millers' homes in the area. She often included her own photographs for her articles. In 1960, she wrote a children's book, illustrated by Kurt Wiese called First Men in Space. She worked with her husband, Hal Clark, a photographer and journalist, and her son, Maynard Clark, a professional photographer as well. Together they produced a series of photographs on the evolving character of New Hope during the 1940s, featuring celebrities such as Paul Whiteman and Moss Hart, as well as picturesque country subjects, like fiddlers and scarecrows. Most of these pictures were taken by Sara and Maynard Clark, and the images first appeared in diverse publications, including the New Hope News, the Allentown Morning Call, the Trenton Times, and the Lambertville Beacon.

Major Group Exhibitions
Life In The Valley, Photographs by Harold Clark, Sara Maynard Clark and Maynard Clark, Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1994

Major Collections
Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Nonfiction
Updated a three-volume history of Bucks County by W.W.H. Davis

Children's Literature
First Men in Space, Illustrated by Kurt Wiese, Penn's Valley Publishers, Inc., 1960

Publications
Selected articles:
Report for Delaware Valley Protective Association on Erwin-Stover House (John Stover, Tinicum Valley Park), 1968
The Historian, published quarterly by Bucks County Historical Society
Farewell to an Era, Bucks County Magazine, December/January 1960
The Story of the Bucks County Bridges, Bucks County Traveler, photography by Sara Maynard Clark, 1962
Crossroads, a column for Bucks County Traveler