- The Browning Photograph Collection contains photographs produced primarily in the 1920s and 1930s by Irving Browning and his commercial photography firm in and around New York City. The varied subject matter, which includes street life during the Great Depression and the construction of Art Deco skyscrapers, reflects the social and economic realities of the time period while also showcasing Browning's technical and aesthetic brilliance.
- This collection consists of 91 photographs by famed New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham of his friend, neighbor, and fellow photographer Editta Sherman posing in period costumes in front of New York City buildings matching the same era as her clothing. Cunningham and Sherman scoured antique shops, street fairs, and auctions for period clothing, and conducted painstaking research to identify appropriate matching buildings. The project took eight years to complete and culminated in a 1977 exhibition at New-York Historical and other venues, as well as the 1978 book Facades.
- The Eugene Gordon Photograph Collection contains black and white gelatin silver prints of street life, religious groups, buildings, and public events of New York City. The photographs show New Yorkers going about their lives in a vibrant city. Gordons attention to detail, and to the changing face of the citys population and streetscape, is evident in images showing ethnic neighborhoods in Queens. The largest groupings of photographs are of Times Square and the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality. Other images show Hare Krishnas, Sikhs, St. Peters Lutheran church being demolished, and the United Nations. Several photographs represent the following neighborhoods: Harlem, Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Long Island City in Queens, Brighton Beach and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Gift given in two parts: Eugene Gordon, 2005 & Miriam Gordon, 2008.
- The Frederick Kelly Photograph Collection spans the period from 1959-1976 and contains 250 black and white silver gelatin photographs, primarily taken in New York City. Frederick Kelly (1905-1999) lived in Baltimore, MD, where he worked as a librarian and an educator. His interests included photography, and he enjoyed traveling to New York City in his later years to photograph the vibrant city's buildings and people. Kelly appears to have been interested in the myriad different characters that mark the fabric of urban life. Most of the photographs are candid; the subjects do not appear to have known their picture was being taken. In general, this quality lends these photographs a documentary air, and allows the views of the city to appear lived in and fresh.
- The collection consists of 212 negatives (most film and some glass). Among the 20 negatives from around 1925 are views of Times Square at night and Walter Chrysler’s home. Almost 80 negatives record the 1938 Eagle Pencil Company strike. Other assignments from the 1930s include the Housewrecker’s Union strike, a women’s tennis tournament, movie theater marquees, radio opera broadcasts sponsored by General Motors, and Jimmy Durante as Santa Claus. Each image has a brief caption. Edwin Levick (1868-1929) specialized in spot news and marine photography. His New York City studio, staffed with some eight assistants, supplied illustrations for the rotogravure sections of several leading newspapers. Most of images in this collection date from the decade after Levick’s death, when the studio continued to cover local news topics.
- 360-degree panorama of San Francisco in 13 panels photographed from the roof of the Mark Hopkins residence on Nob Hill by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878. The views in this panorama are from the same perspective as those in a smaller-sized 11-panel panorama issued in 1877, but the appearance of some of the buildings confirms that they were photographed the following year. Muybridge's panorama was purchased for the New-York Historical Society by Daniel Parish in 1897. In the 1897 letter to the Librarian of the New-York Historical Society included in this digital collection, Muybridge says "permit me to suggest that you have the names of the principal buildings and places copied from those I wrote on the copy at the Astor Library [now part of the New York Public Library]". The title of each photograph is based on Muybridge's annotations on the New York Public Library's copy.
- Victor Prevost (1820-1881) was born in France and studied art before moving to California in 1847 and to New York in 1850. On a visit back to France in 1853, he learned Gustave Le Gray's calotype process, which was based on the process developed by William Henry Fox Talbot and employed sensitized waxed paper to make photographic negatives. When he returned to New York, Prevost opened a photography studio. The Victor Prevost photograph collection consists of 44 calotype negatives and several generations of contact prints. The artfully composed scenes are thought to be among the earliest surviving paper photographic views of New York City. They are prized as fine examples of the calotype process, which was rarely used in the United States.
- Album of ca. 100 albumen photographic prints taken from 1861 to 1865 and printed later. Images include Navy ships and sailors during the blockade of southern ports; army camps; Edisto Island, South Carolina; plantations and African Americans; Fort Warren, Massachusetts; and Andersonville Prison, Georgia. Many of the Edisto Island photographs were taken by Henry P. Moore of New Hampshire. This album is vol. 20 from a 31 volume set of photograph albums compiled by Arnold A. Rand and Albert Ordway. They created a number of such sets throughout the 1880s and into the 20th century, using their personal collection of approximately 4,000 negatives as the source for the album prints., Gift of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the State of New York.
- This digital collection presents one photograph album held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and six photograph albums held by the New-York Historical Society. The photographs are of the design and construction of Fort Tryon Park by the Olmsted Brothers firm and date from 1930 to 1935. The albums have black covers and black-and-white or sepia-colored photographs mounted on grey paper. Printed labels on the cover of the albums have text: "Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects, Brookline, Mass."
- Album of photographs produced by the Education and Recreation District Office of the Work Projects Administration, New York City, in 1938. The photographs depict children and adults engaged in educational and recreational activities as part of various city programs, including the Child Nutrition Program, the Recreation Program for Pre-School Age Children, the Recreational Day Camp Program, the Adult Education Program, the New Reading Materials Program, the Program for Handicapped Children, the Remedial Reading Program, the Field Activities Program, the Community Center Program, the Elementary School Activities Program, the Objective Teaching Materials Project, the Recreational Agencies Program, the Nursery School Program, the Recreation Truant Program, the Street and Play Center Program, and the Adjustment Program for Problem Cases. Title from cover. "Mary C. Tinney" stamped at lower right of cover. Gift of Work Projects Administration, March 26, 1943., New-York Historical Society
- The collection of Civil War stereographs from the New-York Historical Society's Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections covers the entire period of the Civil War, from the first Battle of Bull Run through the surrender at Appomattox, and the triumphal parade of Union forces in Washington D.C. Most of the images were made in the eastern theatre of the war, with a majority of scenes from Virginia. Compelling images of death on the battlefield and the destruction of cities, railroads and bridges show the devastating effects of the war. Individual and group portraits of participants are included, along with images of soldiers relaxing in camps, drilling in the field, and preparing for attack in trenches and other fortifications. There are images of African Americans fleeing slavery by crossing the Union lines, as well as African Americans on southern plantations and serving in the Army and the Navy. Because of their journalistic style, stereographs offer an immediate and graphic look at the war. When seen with a stereograph viewer which creates a three-dimensional effect, the small views (which range in size from 3 1/8 x 6 3/4 inches to 4 x 7 inches) become even more vivid and detailed. While photographers did not usually depict actual battle scenes, they captured images of camp life before battles and of battlefields afterward. Significant Civil War sites are documented, including Fort Sumter and the house at Appomattox where Lee surrendered. These views are also significant because of the photographers who made them. Mathew Brady is represented in the collection, as well as his former employees Alexander Gardner, James Gibson, and Timothy O'Sullivan. Other photographers represented include George N. Barnard, who took photographs in Virginia and the Carolinas, Sam A. Cooley, who was the 'Official Photographer' for the 10th Army Corps, and local photographers from Richmond, Gettysburg, and other locations. The 732 stereographs presented here came to the Society from various sources, although most were acquired in 1960 and 1961 from George T. Bagoe (1886?-1948), who specialized in collecting Civil War stereographs, among other subjects. Other significant groups of views were acquired in 1922, 1923 and 1936.
- This collection of 41 negatives depicts New York subway tunnels under construction. The majority of the glass negatives bear dates from 1901 through 1902, just after the city awarded a subway construction contract in 1900. These negatives show work being done at unknown locations along the subway’s earliest route in Manhattan, which ran from City Hall to 42nd Street on the East Side, then west along 42nd Street to Times Square, and north along Broadway. Negatives show workers, trenches, tunnel entrances, horses hauling materials, and views of tunnel structures from above gound. None of the images bear captions or identification, only dates. The title of each negative is devised from what was written on the negative sleeves during collection processing. The seven film negatives probably date from a later period, and depict an unidentified elevated station.