Sunday 11 January 2009

Some historical Geography!

I have mentioned the brilliant-ness of Flickr before, but I have just discovered an amazing set of images of Norway, Sweden and Denmark from 1890-1910...


This one shows the Supphellebreen Glacier in Sognefjord, Norway:



The 169 images have been added by the Library of Congress (the national library of the USA) and are part of a set of 6500 "photochrom prints" ("Published primarily from the 1890s to 1910s, these prints were created by the Photoglob Company in Zürich, Switzerland, and the Detroit Publishing Company in Michigan. The richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches.") of Europe and the Middle East.

Click here to go to the Photochrom Travel Views set on the Library of Congress Flickr page.

Even more interesting is the "Then and Now" project that has been set up by Flickr users, comparing the LoC images with recent ones of the same views. Unfortunately none of the "nows" are Creative Commons images, but if you click on the screenshot below it will take you to the Then and Now page.

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