Richard graduated from Memorial in 1938 and went to work for Harry and Ansel Wallace, Wallace & Sons, probably as a photo and lab assistant. He was inducted into the Army in October, 1942 and served with the 958 Topographical Engineers in India making negatives and printing plates for Army Air Corps bombing maps. He was Honorably Discharged in November, 1945.
After the war, he resumed his job with Wallace & Sons; Harry and Ansel were deceased but their widows still owned the business. In 1948, Thomas Donahue graduated from Memorial and joined Richard at Wallace. Soon they began Richard F. Donahue Commercial Photographers operating out of their dad's basement on Gum Street. They would go into Evansville's many furniture companies to photograph new products, go home, process negatives, opaque out the backgrounds and make black & white salesmen's prints.
In 1949 they bought the Wallace and Sons building at 626 Court Street and changed the sign to "Richard F. Donahue Commercial Photographers". In the 1950's or 1960's the business name was changed to "Donahue Studios Commercial Photographers" and, in the 1980's, changed to DSI Graphics.
At first, their work primarily consisted of black & white product photography for area manufacturers. With the advent of color photography, they also made color prints, presentation slides, color separation negatives for offset printing, sales brochures and catalogs. At its peak, Donahue Studios had sixteen people. Richard died in 1994 and his brother Tom closed the business in November, 1998. Their archives are being catalogued and many of the general-interest photographs can be seen at DonahueStudiosPhotographs.com.
