Photographic Treasures

Share on Facebook

You are only the click of a mouse away from being transported to a time when horses provided public transportation, football was played without helmets and newsboys shouted “Extra!” to deliver breaking news.

Libraries throughout the country are making collections of vintage photographs available on the Web. Several are also selling prints.
The Los Angeles Public Library offers an extensive collection of photographs that trace the city’s business, industry, sports and agricultural history. Patrons search the database for a variety of reasons, said Christina Rice, acting senior librarian for LAPL’s History and Genealogy Department. “Some are just curious to visually access Los Angeles history, while others are performing in-depth research for school projects, books, or documentaries. We even have interior decorators who regularly access the collection for clients.”

LAPL’s collection includes more than 150,000 photographs from the turn of the 19th Century as part of the Security Pacific National Bank collection, as well as several thousand images taken in the 1930s of the city for the Federal Writers Project.  In addition, the library owns the photo archives of two newspapers. More than 2 million photos from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner document the rapidly evolving city from the 1920s to 1989, and the Valley Times depicts suburban life in the San Fernando Valley from 1946-1968.

The photo database was accessed more than 17 million times in the 2009 fiscal year, Rice said. “Feedback is always very positive,” she added. “Users are thrilled to have easy access to the online database, where we add roughly 300 new images every month.”

Some of Rice’s favorites include:

Photos from the Security National Bank collection that demonstrate the early booster efforts to convince people to relocate to Southern California, where women swam in a sea of grapes and even the local pooches were well accessorized.

A classic shot of Los Angeles Police Chief James "Two Gun" Davis.

Jayne Mansfield promoting swimming pools and a sign “greeting” visitors at Frank Sinatra’s home, from the Valley Times.

The Brooklyn Collection

In New York, Brooklyn Public Library offers a wide-ranging online photo gallery, much of which is culled from the archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It includes candid shots of Coney Island, a gallery devoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers and their fans, and vintage photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge—one aerial view dates from 1888.

In addition, the Brooklyn library has in its collection a number of photographs by amateur and professional photographers. A picture from 1886, credited to George Brainerd, shows a grape vendor at an outdoor Brooklyn market (shown above). And the photographs of Edward E. Rutter, official photographer for the Borough of Brooklyn, capture the borough’s streets, subways and roads from the 1920s into the 1950s. Joy Holland, division chief of the Brooklyn Collection of Brooklyn Public Library said her favorites among the library’s holdings include the Wilcox Collection.

Holland said the collection began in earnest in 1957 when the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which went out of business in 1955 in the wake of a union dispute, placed its photo archives on deposit at the Central Library. “The Eagle was a local, national and international newspaper, so while we are best known here for our photographs of Brooklyn, we also have a large collection of photographs covering world news of the first half of the 20th century—about 235,000 Eagle photographs in all,” she said.

Many of the large collections from other photos came to the library from the Brooklyn Museum, which still holds the glass plate negatives. “We continue to build the collection, mostly by purchase from a local collector and dealer.”

Holland said that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle online attracts around 40,000 visits of 15 minutes or more a month. “Our blog, Brooklynology, which features some of our photographs and other materials, has yet to go viral but is attracting a steady 400-500 visits a day.”

Treasures from Congress

A real treasure trove of vintage photographs resides within the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress. Since 1897, the division has been acquiring, preserving, organizing and cataloging visual materials in order to make them available and useful through an active reference service, many kinds of print publications, and now direct online access.

The collection includes an estimated 12 million photographs, plus architectural and documentary drawings, fine art and historical prints, cartoons, and posters. The subject matter emphasizes American people, places, events, and creativity, but international topics are also well represented. The time period spans the first days of photography to the present, from the daguerreotype to born-digital images. About 1.2 million images are currently online.

Many of those who use the collection work on publications, films, exhibitions and other projects that spread the access even further to new audiences, said Helena Zinkham, acting chief of the Prints and Photographs Division, noting that “We also 'take the pictures to the people" by using social media. Through the Flickr Commons project, more than 25,000 people have made us a contact to receive the weekly batch of new images.”

Zinkham said some of her favorite photographs are those that make you “look twice” and want to know more, as well as those that elicit tears or laughter or challenge you to unravel a puzzle. They include:

A woman aircraft worker in 1942.

A self-portrait by Robert Cornelius from 1839, making it the oldest portrait photograph taken in the United States.

The Goose Creek oil field in 1919.

Washstand in the dog run and kitchen of Floyd Burroughs' cabin in Hale County, Alabama.

Baseball player Germany Schaefer in 1911.

In many cases, digitized photos held by libraries are available for personal use, and print reproductions may also be available. Check each library’s website for their terms.