Coddington, left, and Neville after signing the purchase agreement at Neville’s home outside Pittsburgh, Pa.
Historian David Neville has stepped aside after a decade at the helm of Military Images. Neville, who has owned and edited the publication since 2003, sold the magazine to Ronald S. Coddington of Arlington, Va., on August 10, 2013.
Coddington is a contributing author to the New York Times Disunion series. He also writes “Faces of War,” a regular column in the Civil War News, and has authored three books published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. His latest volume, African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album, was released last year.
Coddington takes over as publisher and editor of MI immediately. “Military Images has a long tradition of excellence in bringing to light rare military portrait photographs, and I am thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to guide MI to the next chapter in its life,” reports Coddington. He adds, “The magazine continues to play a key role in preserving the visual record and stories of citizen soldiers in America, and is a key source for information about uniforms and other aspects of the military. In the current digital age, with so much new material surfacing, it is more important than ever to have a publication that showcases and interprets these important images.”
Harry Roach founded the magazine in 1979. He set a mission to document the photographic history of U.S. soldiers and sailors from the birth of photography in 1839 through World War I, although the vast majority of published images date from the Civil War period. Roach sold the magazine in 1999 to Philip Katcher, from whom Neville purchased it four years later.
Regular contributors to MI include some of the most respected and knowledgeable collectors in the country, including Michael J. McAfee, John Sickles, Chris Nelson, David Wynn Vaughan, Ron Field, and Ken Turner.
“I’m excited to continue working with all of our contributors, and to invite new faces with a passion for military photography to participate,” notes Coddington, who can be contacted at militaryimages@gmail.com or militaryimagesmagazine.com.
