Photograph Albums
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Tipple and Washer, Central Iron and Coal Company.
Alabama Mining Institute, Birmingham, Alabama
These photographic albums were created at the behest of the United States Coal Commission, a federal agency charged by Congress in 1922 and 1923 to investigate the coal industry and its labor problems. The pictures depict the company-owned houses and schools, churches, boarding houses, commissaries, markets, and other buildings (many of which were segregated for white and African-American workers) of the twelve member companies of the Alabama Mining Institute.
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Desk stand, 1892.
AT&T Bell Laboratories
This album contains close-up views of telephone equipment produced by Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. between 1879 and 1928. The photographs focus on desk stands, handsets, and early telephone sets that were exhibited in the Bell Telephone, Inc. Historical Museum in New York City, circa 1931.
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Flood Scene, 1927.
Boston and Albany Railroad Company
On November 3 and 4, 1927, a catastrophic flood hit eastern Canada and western New England. This album depicts the aftermath of the disaster including landslides and flood-damaged railroad tracks and bridges of the Boston and Albany Railroad Co. near Becket, Massachusetts.
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Plucking Cocoons.
Central Raw Silk Association of Japan
Photographs and accompanying captions portray detailed views of the production of raw silk in Japan during the 1930s. Images include the raising and feeding of silkworms, the harvesting of cocoons, the reeling of the silk fiber strand, skeining and baling of the raw silk, and inspection and testing of the finished product.
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Man bagging meat.
Deepfreeze Distributors, Inc., Chicago, Illinois
Deepfreeze Distributors, Inc. was a Chicago-based distributor of frozen foods, including vegetables, fruits, and meats. Photographs illustrate the firm’s sales office in Hubbard Woods, Illinois, including the retail showroom, freezer storage area, and equipment room.
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Exterior of Durgin Shoe Co. in Haverill, Mass., 1912.
Durgin Shoe Company, Haverhill, Massachusetts
Durgin Shoe Company manufactured women’s shoes in Haverhill, Massachusetts, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These images, taken in April 1912, show the factory building, company office, and workers at their stations in cutting, stitching, lasting, finishing, and packing rooms.
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#34 Wilbur Wright, 1910.
Harvard–Boston Aviation Meet, 1910
This volume contains photographs of the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet held September 3 to September 13, 1910. Included are photographs taken for the Boston Globe on the aviation field during the meet and some dramatic images taken during the flying exhibition by Claude Grahame-White.
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Tube Splicing Department.
Hood Rubber Company, Watertown, Massachusetts
These images, taken in 1924, show the operations of the Hood Rubber Company, which was incorporated in 1898. Photographs record the delivery and processing of raw rubber, assembly and packaging of rubber footwear, production and inspection of tires and tubes, and the plant’s warehouses, boiler house, and other facilities.
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Unloading on No. 4 Platform--Warehouse No. 2.
Houston Compress Company, Houston, Texas
Cotton purchased from Texas and Oklahoma was delivered by rail to the Houston Compress Company in Texas, where it was stored and protected in fire-resistant concrete warehouses. The company’s high-density compress machines were used to decrease the size of the cotton bales. Photographs and captions, circa 1920, illustrate warehouses, railroad platforms, operation of compress equipment, and quality inspection.
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Pumping Station.
Illinois Steel Company
The Illinois Steel Company was formed in 1889 by the merger of several Chicago-area steel concerns. During the 1890s, it was the largest steel producer in the western United States. This album, circa 1896, includes dramatic scenes of steel workers engaged in their assigned specialties as well as exterior factory views. In 1901 Illinois Steel Company became part of United States Steel Corporation.
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The Mine.--Flat sheet of 800 foot level, bottom of
rock shaft (underground).Illustrations of Diamond Industry from “Mining the Ground”
This souvenir album illustrates the diamond mining operations of the De Beers Consolidated Mines in Kimberley, South Africa, in 1892. The photographs, taken by J. E. Middlebrook, include images of European and native African miners at work, engine rooms and other equipment, native workers sorting gravel for diamonds, and European workers classifying the diamonds for shipment.
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Here one gets a close up view of the way the
polishing machines toil.Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company
“Some Pictures of Flat Glass Production” Toledo, OhioFormed in 1930, the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company of Toledo, Ohio, produced window glass, plate glass, and automobile safety glass at plants in Ohio and West Virginia. Photographs in this album, circa 1939, record the stages of pouring, grinding, polishing, and cutting glass.
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Product Dept.--Fourth Floor.
National Acme Manufacturing Company, Cleveland, Ohio
The National Acme Company manufactured multiple spindle automatic machines used in the machine tool industry and a variety of screw products. This album documents the manufacturing operations of the company, circa 1915, including the screw product department, machinery department, oil supply operation, and shipping room.
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Fuel from the Depths.
Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company
The Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, a subsidiary of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road, was founded in 1871 to allow its parent corporation to control the transportation of anthracite coal mined in eastern Pennsylvania. One volume illustrates the company’s coal mining operations and miners at work, and the second depicts the firm’s coal breaker plants, where the anthracite was cleaned of impurities, screened and separated by size, inspected and tested, and loaded onto railroad cars.
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General View of Progress on Lock. Looking towards upper gate, June 1912.
Power and Light Photograph Albums, 1910-ca.1925
The activities of a number of leading power and light companies - Federal Light and Traction Company; Grays Harbor Railway & Light Company of Hoquiam, Washington; the Mississippi River Power Company; the Utah Power and Light Company; and the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company - are featured in this collection. Photographs include dramatic views of lock construction, engine rooms and power houses, substations, offices, railways and transmission lines, panoramic vistas of Mississippi River dams, and early twentieth-century scenes of local towns and areas served by the companies.
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Triple Flashing, 1876.
Dioptric Lights for Lighthouses, ca. 1876
This album features a variety of dioptric lights created to illuminate lighthouses throughout the world. Chance Brothers & Co., a glassmaking firm located near Birmingham, England, produced the lights between 1869 and 1876.
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Punch and die section of tool making department,
ca. 1925.Western Electric Company “Hawthorne Works"
Bell System Educational Conference, 1925The Western Electric Company manufactured a wide variety of telephone equipment at its Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois. A notable series of worker efficiency experiments known as the Hawthorne Studies were staged at the plant between 1924 and 1933. These views taken in 1925 include the plant’s buildings and grounds, offices and laboratories, various shop departments (including the telephone apparatus, cable, rubber, and insulating operations), rod and wire mill, and recreational activities.
