In 1910, William Sumner Appleton founded the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Today, the organization is known as Historic New England and it operates a range of historic properties throughout the region. The homepage offers nine primary sections, including Events and Programs, Publications, Preservation, and Collections, Archives, and Exhibitions. The first area is a...

Founded in 1849 in the Central Valley of California, Stockton's prime location on the edge of the San Joaquin Delta has made it a major shipping port. This particular collection from the University of Pacific's Holt-Atherton Special Collections brings together approximately 500 photographs that document the history of this unique city. Most of the items here document the waterfront and city...

This project, a collaboration between the University of Bristol, University of Lincoln, the Institut d’Asie Orientale, and TGE-Adonis, “aims to locate, archive, and disseminate” the disparate photographs of modern China held in private collections around the world. This is a particularly compelling goal, as the bulk of the photographic archives of modern China were destroyed inside the country...

From Van Cortland Park in the Bronx down to the bucolic stylings of Staten Island in the late 19th century, this very fun online exhibition from the New York Public Library will sate the desires of those persons with a penchant for historical postcards. Recently, the Library placed five hundred postcards depicting views of all five boroughs in the late 19th and early 20th century within the much...

In 1909, concerned Philadelphians and reformers looked around their fair city, and saw terrible slum conditions. That very year, the Philadelphia Housing Commission was formed, and over the years they would lobby to create a comprehensive housing code. In 1915, the enforcement of this code began, and the organization later became the Housing Association of the Delaware Valley. Their photographic...

At first glance, the web site for this show of photography at the Tate Britain - the first major exhibition of photography ever to be held at the museum - doesn't seem to include digital version of many photographs from the physical show. There are two albums of historical photos: Mr. & Mrs. Welford's photograph album, and The Ragged School Union, that hold roughly 200 hundred pictures, along...

Perhaps what is so stunning about Humans of New York (HONY) is its celebration of humanness. The website is built around two very basic premises: photographs and short quotes. For example, a portrait of a young, well-dressed woman sitting on a bench is paired with the quote, "I'm afraid if I don't choose a path soon, life will choose one for me." Another photo, of a happy-looking young girl, is...

Over the past 150 years, almost 800 Illinois firefighters have died in the line of duty. This remarkable and thorough online database provides historical background information and digitized images related to this subject. The funding for this project was provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Visitors can use the customized search engine to search the records by last...

William O. Field spent much of his long and interesting life as a geographer, pioneer glaciologist, and active member of the American Geographical Society. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Field made three visits to the Soviet Union. During his time there he photographed some of the highest peaks in the Caucasus and also found time to document a variety of historical churches, towers, and...

The state of Massachusetts played a major role in the American antislavery movement, and for a number of decades, the epicenter of this movement was in Boston. The Massachusetts Historical Society created this website in order to highlight some of the visual materials from their collection that deal with this facet of American history. Visitors to the site can look over digital images of 840...