Early 1900 photos of Cincinnati and other resources found at Library of Congress

Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer
·2 min read

The Library of Congress is a tremendous resource for books, but also photographs, maps and lithographs, plus personal narratives from the Veterans History Project.

Among the resources are numerous related to Cincinnati, from an 1876 print of then-new landmarks such as the Tyler Davidson Fountain and the Public Library, to a 2004 video interview with 1944 Miss America Venus Ramey, who grew up in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

The Library of Congress website (www.loc.gov) has a drop-down menu with several categories of archive materials, many of them available online.

The photo archives include several collections that have been donated to the Library of Congress, including the archives of the Detroit Publishing Co. The Detroit-based company was founded in the late 1890s by businessman and publisher William A. Livingstone Jr. and photographer Edwin H. Husher.

Cincinnati City Hall, c. 1900.
Cincinnati City Hall, c. 1900.

From about 1897 to 1921, the Detroit Publishing Co. collected black-and-white photographs of cities and towns, buildings and street scenes throughout the United States and converted them into color images, most often for postcards. The company had exclusive rights to the Swiss “photochrom” process that entailed hand-painting the negative, then transferring the image through colored gels onto printing plates.

The company donated more than 25,000 glass negatives that eventually found their way into the Library of Congress archives.

1907: Fountain Square and Fifth Street, Cincinnati.
1907: Fountain Square and Fifth Street, Cincinnati.

The black-and-white images are high-resolution, showing incredible detail. The Cincinnati scenes, dating mostly from 1900-1910, include:

  • Downtown street scenes with carriages driving past historic buildings when they were new;

  • Music Hall with its original filaments and architectural details;

  • Chester Park amusement park;

  • the original Cincinnati Art Museum design by architect James W. McLaughlin;

  • the historic Burnet House hotel;

  • the early Fountain Square;

  • the inclines;

  • the original Island Queen steamboat passing underneath the Roebling Suspension Bridge.

The clarity of the photos is striking, as though the historic images were just captured. Our history comes alive.

1907: The steamboat Island Queen on the Ohio River passes under the Roebling Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati.
1907: The steamboat Island Queen on the Ohio River passes under the Roebling Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Early 1900 photos of Cincinnati, other resources at Library of Congress