Snapshots of the Past

[Niagara Falls] – Vintage Wall Art

[Niagara Falls], [ca. 1854] — historic photograph
[Niagara Falls], [ca. 1854]. Historic photograph from the State Parks 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

Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of [Niagara Falls]. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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[Niagara Falls]

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Few American scenes were photographed as often in the 1850s as Niagara Falls, where the roar of water along the border between New York and Ontario drew sightseers from across the country. This ambrotype, dated about 1854, records the cataract on a glass plate, a process that produced a positive image by backing a collodion negative with dark material. Ambrotypes were cheaper than daguerreotypes and gave ordinary travelers an affordable souvenir of a famous view. The picture has been reproduced in several Library of Congress publications and was included in the American Treasures exhibition in 2004 and 2005.

Created / published[ca. 1854]
Medium1 photograph : ambrotype.
GenreAmbrotypes 1850-1860.
NotesPublished in: Eyes of the nation : a visual history of the United States / Vincent Virga and curators of the Library of Congress ; historical commentary by Alan Brinkley. New York : Knopf, 1997. Published in: Viewpoints; a selection from the pictorial collections of the Library of Congress .... Washington : Library of Congress ..., 1975, no. 106. Exhibited: American Treasures of the Library of Congress, 2004-05. Unprocessed; in Ambrotype Cabinet.
SubjectsNiagara Falls (N.Y. and Ont.)--1850-1860.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,250 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-111538

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