Photography - Overview
The millions of photographs in the Museum's collections compose a vast mosaic of the nation's history. Photographs accompany most artifact collections. Thousands of images document engineering projects, for example, and more record the steel, petroleum, and railroad industries.
Some 150,000 images capture the history, art, and science of photography. Nineteenth-century photography, from its initial development by W. H. F. Talbot and Louis Daguerre, is especially well represented and includes cased images, paper photographs, and apparatus. Glass stereographs and news-service negatives by the Underwood & Underwood firm document life in America between the 1890s and the 1930s. The history of amateur photography and photojournalism are preserved here, along with the work of 20th-century masters such as Richard Avedon and Edward Weston. Thousands of cameras and other equipment represent the technical and business side of the field.
"Photography - Overview" showing 3193 items.
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Snapshot of Young Boy at Table
- Description
- Photograph albums and amateur snapshots reflect the importance of cherished family memories. Casual and personal, these snapshots document everyday life and generations of families. Here a young boy enjoys his milk at the kitchen table.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1940s-1960s
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1999.0281.042
- catalog number
- 1999.0281.042
- accession number
- 1999.0281
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Snapshot of Family Gathering
- Description
- Photograph albums and amateur snapshots reflect the importance of cherished family memories. Casual and personal, these snapshots document everyday life and generations of families. This photograph, possibly a birthday party, documents a large family group sitting and standing around a set table.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1940s-1960s
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1999.0281.055
- catalog number
- 1999.0281.055
- accession number
- 1999.0281
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Snapshot with Car
- Description
- Photograph albums and amateur snapshots reflect the importance of cherished family memories. Casual and personal, these snapshots document everyday life and generations of families. Dating back to the invention of the automobile at the beginning of the 20th century, those who could afford cars often had their pictures taken next to the vehicle. Here two men are seen leaning against a car parked by a curb.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1940s-1950s
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1999.0281.068
- catalog number
- 1999.0281.068
- accession number
- 1999.0281
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Polaroid Big Swinger 3000 Camera
- Description
- In 1947, Edwin H. Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation, first demonstrated his instant photographic process. Years of research and development culminated in the Polaroid Land camera Model 95 for sale to the general public in 1948. It held eight 3 ¼ x 4 ¼” sepia-toned images, which begin processing in the camera and finish developing once pulled from the camera. Prints were ready for the user within sixty seconds. Over the next 50 years, continued advances in Polaroid technology produced a wide-variety of cameras and film, polarizing lenses, and 3-D products sold in the United States and around the world.
- Polaroid cameras are popular among professional and amateur photographers as well as artists, but certain cameras are marketed to specific groups, such as young adults and teenagers. The low-cost Swinger camera and Type 20C black and white film were introduced in 1965, just two years after Polaroid perfected instant color film. Prize-winning ad campaigns using slogans such as “$19.95 swings it” were effective. The Swinger gained popularity with young adults and later models like the Polaroid Big Swinger 3000 were produced. Thirty years later the Joycam is the Polaroid camera marketed for this same age group.
- Polaroid’s innovative cameras, both instant film and digital, and related products continue to appear in stores and online as the corporation goes through bankruptcy. Digital photography and declining sales make uncertain the company’s future.
- From its invention in 1839, the camera has evolved to fit many needs, from aerial to underwater photography and everything in between. Cameras allow both amateur and professional photographers to capture the world around us. The Smithsonian’s historic camera collection includes rare and unique examples of equipment, and popular models, related to the history of the science, technology, and art of photography.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1960s
- maker
- Polaroid Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.0286.02
- accession number
- 2001.0286
- catalog number
- 2001.0286.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Family Photo Album
- Description
- Family photograph albums hold the history of generations, preserving the memories of birthdays, holidays, travels, and all general aspects of life. African American Mary Taylor used her 35mm Bell and Howell camera to document her family's life in the black community of Los Angeles, California, during the mid-20th century. She turned a discarded wallpaper sample book into a treasured family heirloom.
- Taylor's family photographs including 19th-century tintypes, turn-of-the-century hand-colored portraits, and albums from the 1950s to the 1970s provide insight into the African American experience in the United States over the past century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1960
- maker
- Taylor, Mary A.
- ID Number
- 2002.0103.02
- accession number
- 2002.0103
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Canon AE-1 35 mm Camera
- Description
- This Canon AE-1 35mm camera is a 1990s version of the popular Japanese electronically-controlled automatic single lens reflex camera first introduced in 1976. Popular among amateurs, this light plastic camera was an important success for Canon against its many camera competitors in Japan and the United States.
- From its invention in 1839, the camera has evolved to fit many needs, from aerial to underwater photography and everything in between. Cameras allow both amateur and professional photographers to capture the world around us. The Smithsonian’s historic camera collection includes rare and unique examples of equipment, and popular models, related to the history of the science, technology, and art of photography.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1990s
- maker
- Canon
- ID Number
- 2004.0061.01
- accession number
- 2004.0061
- catalog number
- 2004.0061.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mountain of the Holy Cross
- Description
- After the Civil War the United States turned its full attention to exploration of the West. A number of geological survey teams, organized by the Department of the Interior, spent the 1870s traveling throughout the region, charting the landscape and employing photographers and engravers to capture images of the people and the environment. One such photographer was William Henry Jackson, a member of the United States Geological and Geographic Survey of the Territories from 1870 to 1878. The photographs that Jackson brought back to the East helped to introduce much of the population to the existence and phenomena of the western landscape, and helped to shape public perception as well as governmental policies surrounding the region.
- One of Jackson's most enduring and iconic images is his photograph of the 14,000-foot Mountain of the Holy Cross, located in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The mountain was already a legend when Jackson photographed it, because of the snow-filled cross that appeared on its eastern face when weather conditions permitted. His struggle to actually locate and get the photograph—including an arduous trek up a mountainside carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment without the benefit of pack animals, and a night spent exposed to the high altitude air in order to be in the right place when the sun —only added to the status of the mountain after the image was published.
- In subsequent years the Holy Cross photograph continued to influence American culture. Jackson won a number of awards for the image; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used the picture as inspiration for his poem The Cross of Snow; and many Christians saw the presence of the cross in such a landscape as an invitation to participate in Manifest Destiny and further explore and populate the unknown territories of the West.
- This image was donated to the Smithsonian in 1967.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1870s
- date made
- 1873
- user
- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
- maker
- Jackson, William Henry
- ID Number
- 2004.0286.16
- accession number
- 2004.0286
- catalog number
- 2004.0286.16
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Kodak Advantix T700 Camera
- Description
- The Kodak Advantix T700 camera is an example of the company’s Advanced Photo System compact automatic camera introduced in the 1990s and intended primarily for amateur photographers. Film for the camera was factory-loaded in a cassette for easy drop-in loading. Users could select from three film sizes before pressing the shutter to produce images in 4 x 6”, 4 x 7”, or 4 x 11” panoramic format. Once processed for printing, the negative film was returned to the cassette and an index print of all images made for the owner’s future reference in making copy prints.
- From its invention in 1839, the camera has evolved to fit many needs, from aerial to underwater photography and everything in between. Cameras allow both amateur and professional photographers to capture the world around us. The Smithsonian’s historic camera collection includes rare and unique examples of equipment, and popular models, related to the history of the science, technology, and art of photography.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1990s
- maker
- Eastman Kodak Company
- ID Number
- 2005.0143.014
- accession number
- 2005.0143
- catalog number
- 2005.0143.014
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
South Street on New York City's waterfront
- Description
- After joining the photographic unit of the Resettlement Administration in 1935, Carl Mydans was sent to document the living conditions of ordinary Americans in their urban settings. In New York City, housing shortages and the lack of relief aid offered to the unemployed during the Great Depression led homeless people to seek refuge among the rubble of the city. During the cold winter, four men huddled around a makeshift fire on the side of the street to warm themselves.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- Winter 1935
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.001
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The nation's Capitol seen through the slums
- Description
- Carl Mydans was part of Roy Stryker's photographic staff at the Resettlement Administration from late in 1935 until 1936. Between his assignments in the southeastern states to document cotton production and his travels farther north in New England, Mydans spent time in the nation's capital and photographed the Capitol from a different, less familiar point of view. During the 1930s, most neighborhoods surrounding the Capitol were poor shantytowns of tenements and shacks.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1935-09
- 1935
- photographer
- Mydans, Carl
- ID Number
- 2005.0228.003
- accession number
- 2005.0228
- catalog number
- 2005.0228.003
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center