Snapshots of the Past

[City Hall and Campus Martius, Detroit, Mich.] – Antique Print

[City Hall and Campus Martius, Detroit, Mich.], [between 1900 and 1915] — historic photograph
[City Hall and Campus Martius, Detroit, Mich.], [between 1900 and 1915]. Historic photograph from the Detroit collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This rare historic photograph captures [City Hall and Campus Martius, Detroit, Mich.] in remarkable detail. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.

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[City Hall and Campus Martius, Detroit, Mich.]

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Detroit's Campus Martius is one of the oldest public squares in the city, and this view pairs it with the Detroit City Hall, a dignified civic building that anchored the downtown core in the early twentieth century. The Detroit Publishing Company, which operated from the 1890s into the 1920s, sent photographers across the country to document cities and landscapes, and their large glass plate negatives captured street life with remarkable clarity. Because the catalog lists the plate as dating from between 1900 and 1915, it offers a snapshot of downtown Detroit as the automobile and streetcar were reshaping its traffic and public spaces. The subject tags for parking and commercial facilities hint at the changing character of the square during those years.

Created / published[between 1900 and 1915]
Medium1 negative : glass ; 8 x 10 in.
GenreDry plate negatives.
NotesTitle devised by cataloger. G 8689" on negative. Detroit Publishing Co. no. 500087. Gift; State Historical Society of Colorado; 1949."
SubjectsCity & town halls. Commercial facilities. Parking. Plazas.United States--Michigan--Detroit.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection
Original scan783 × 980 px
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-DET-74509

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