A long time resident of Washington, D.C., Charles Suddarth Kelly produced and directed the first telecasts of historic events from the White House, U.S. Congress and other places in the United States Capital. He arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1945 to establish the first television station programming department. Subsequently, he was program manager for the NBC network in D.C., and Vice President-Manager of Channel 7 Television. He has held other senior executive positions in television, including the Public Broadcasting Service.

Mr. Kelly became acquainted with Washington, D.C.’s historical archives, private and public, when illustrations were sought for news and information programs in his television work. He found the existing collections inconvenient to use because they were not catalogued by venue or date. In response, he began to assemble a personal collection of original and copy photographs in 1945, focusing on developing chronologies of landmark sites, and collecting panoramas, views of buildings (including city street vistas), neighborhoods, and parks.

The book Washington, D.C. Then and Now: 69 Sites Photographed in the Past and Present, published in 1984, was an outgrowth of his research.