Tag: image. historical

The New York Public Library has just published 187 thousand digital images online. The collection is staggering in its volume, a collection of images that ranges across the spectrum of American and even world history. One could publish an interesting blog simply mining this huge collection for the historical tidbits it contains. World events to restaurant menus, there is just so much there.

I did a few quick searches for interesting Hawaiian images. Most of the images showing the islands are either postcards or stereoscopic pairs. There are views of typical tourist scenes such as Diamond Head and surfing at Waikiki. There are quite a few images of the plantation era, sugar mills and such, as well as quite a few simple “pastoral” images with little context or interest.

In addition to the images there is a great deal of other material. Old engravings and illustrations, maps, even menus from restaurants dating back a century. I will have to refer to this collection when looking for illustrations in the future, there is a treasure trove of material here.

Most of the interesting images I found were stereoscopic pairs. Stereoscopic pairs were incredibly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While many might be familiar with the View-Master style stereo viewers of the 1950’s and 1970’s, the original version of this used a side-by-side print in place of a transparency.

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