MetaFilter posts tagged with images and history

Pictures don't lie

Miko — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:27:24 -0800

Photomontage timeline, 1850-2007. Spirit photography, trick photography, comic montages, Photoshop, etc. I only wish you could enlarge these images. But I'm glad to have learned about the Cottingley Fairies.

Semi-moving images

mattbucher — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:30:23 -0800

Reaching: Joshua Heineman animates old photos from the NY Public Library collections. It's fascinating to see a little depth added to these old images, although they might induce seizures for some.

In the flash of a click

hadjiboy — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:42:01 -0800

The Power of Photography (might or might not be NSFW) with accompanying articles: Stricken Child crawling towards a Food Camp [1994] | The Falling Man [2001] | The Youngest Mother [1939] | Born Twice [1999] (via)

Art Image Bank

Rumple — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:39:35 -0800

Art Images for College Teaching is a searchable, browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the exterior sculpture of Chartres; and grave stele.

The Visual Arts Data Service

paduasoy — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:56:10 -0800

VADS is a resource for visual art, a huge range of things from students' work to collections of historical art and design. I particularly liked the Bookbinders's Women's Suffrage banner and the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

Collage: online image database

paduasoy — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:13:18 -0800

Collage is an online image database from the collections of the City of London Libraries and the Guildhall Art Gallery. Images cover the last five centuries. You can search by key word or browse by theme, artist/engraver, person or place. Some random pictures I liked: the Duchess of Devonshire canvassing, 1784; the interior of St Bride's, Fleet Street, 1830 (the inside of the church was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War, so it's interesting to compare the restored church with the picture); and A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in London, 1825.

There're also some Virtual Exhibitions - "The London that never was" is particularly interesting.

If you want to visit the Guildhall Art Gallery itself, entrance is free on Fridays.

popculture advertising ephemera

madamjujujive — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:25:46 -0800

From about 1875 to the 1940s, cigarette cards spurred tobacco sales. Sets offer a glimpse into the popculture of the times, spanning newsmakers, cinema celebrities, and sports stars; cute illustrated subjects, like "frisky" and children with rosy cheeks; handy info like air raid precautions, first aid, and amusing tricks; and neat stuff like famous escapes, exotic races, and figures of speech. Browse more fun sets of vintage images.

French language ephemera and visual miscellany blog

Rumple — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:53:37 -0800

Agence Eureka is a French language image-blog with hundreds or even thousands of scanned illustrations, mostly from mid-20th century French schoolbooks, educational material, magazines, and ephemera. The current front page is slightly NSFW. Some of the categories include anatomy 1 & 2 (mildly NSFW); chocolate wrappers/trading cards; bricolage; decoupage (cut-outs); math education; playing cards; books and magazines; cars; cinema; orientalisme; sport; mild pin-ups; and many others (scroll all the way down the right to see the tags). In most cases the above links are to only one set of images within many of that category - there are about 10 pages of decoupages, for example. A number of the same illustrations are available in alternate organization here and in their flickr sets. Also, their blog of French hats is fun.

Remarkable persons

madamjujujive — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:24:14 -0800

If you are a fan of longtime MeFite peacay's extraordinary blog, BibliOdyssey - and who isn't? - you can now get the coffee table version, The Annotated Archives of BibliOdyssey. (Or, in the U.S.) Forward by artist Dinos Chapman (NSFW). Kudos, peacay! Via.

Science Service Historical Image Collection

unknowncommand — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:19:47 -0800

"The Science Service Historical Image Collection represents twentieth-century scientific research consisting of images and original captions as they appeared in period publications." For an easy browse, check out the fun randomly selected thumbnail images. Science Service is a nonprofit organization founded in 1921 to increase public interest in science. These images, culled from their past publications, span 40 years of innovations in electricity. Science Service currently publishes Science News.

State of the Art 1876

Mitheral — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:12:17 -0800

Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary Containing over 3000 pages the Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary was billed as A description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering; history of inventions; general technological vocabulary. Published in 1876 it is a great resource for those trying to figure out how things were done in the time of our great (great?) grand parents. Ilustrations, upwards of 5000 engravings, include a ride inside monocycle, trestle bridges, compound microscope, clod crushers, washing machines, spoke driver, hydraulic wagon-tipper, and a farmers tool-house. Warning: the book has been scanned in and all the item links are to 100-150K images.

Old Istanbul.

languagehat — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:18:08 -0800

Old Istanbul Postcards. If you have any fondness for old city views, this is irresistible. Here's a look at the Old City of Istanbul a hundred years ago (Hagia Sophia is just left of center), and here's the gate of the Ottoman War Ministry, now Istanbul University (map). There's lots more where those came from. (Via Desultory Turgescence.)

Fencing Sucks

Shane — Mon, 30 Jun 2003 11:28:57 -0800

No, seriously, they score by touching the opponent in the Valid Target Area. The touches are monitored electronically via wires coming out of the fencers' backs, similar to the technology used to control Dan Rather.
-from Dave Barry on Fencing in the humor section of Fencing Sucks.

MiguelCardoso — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 12:05:12 -0800

"America As It Was: A Tour Of The USA In Vintage Postcards" is a vast, amazing collection, quaintly presented by my new heroine: an Atlanta real estate agent and church volunteer called Pat Sabin who dreams of one day visiting Chicago and whose(some would say surprising) love for all things webby is an example to us all. Please don't be put off by the homey graphics and folksy language - it really is a rich, rich resource! [My favourite postcard turns out to be from James Lilek's New York collection. Go figure. All I can say is God bless the meetings of unlikely minds!)]