Colorization

"Negro tenant farmer, rehabilitation client. Jefferson County, Kansas", 1938.

Chimpanzee "Mary" sitting on a bench with a pipe, ca 1940

Via University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society

[Untitled] (Steel mill), ca. 1940

Unknown steel mill, ca. 1940.
A metal worker pours glowing hot molten steel from a giant furnace.

Christmas in Glenwood, Colorado, ca. 1949

Original photo courtesy of Steve V. of Glenwood, Co

Auto Accident on US 40, 1936

An automobile accident on the U.S. 40 between Hagerstown and Cumberland, Maryland

Original image LOC

Abraham Lincoln, 1860

16th United States President

Harry Houdini, 1912

Illusionist and stunt performer Harry Houdini steps into a crate that will be lowered into New York Harbor as part of an escape stunt, July 7, 1912.

Opening moments of the 1954 World Cup Final, "Miracle of Bern", played at the Wankdorf Stadium in Bern, Switzerland

Original image: Museums der Weltmeisterschaft 1954

Boy Blowing Out Christmas Tree Candle

Nationaal Archief/Spaarnestad Photo/Walter Blum

One of the Crouch children looking to see if the "pudd'n" is ready for their Thanksgiving dinner. Ledyard, Connecticut, 1940

Original by Jack Delano

British Tattoo Artist George Burchett, ca 1930

Original image via General Photographic Agency / Getty Images

Via General Photographic Agency / Getty Images

Al Capone’s soup kitchen during the Great Depression, Chicago, 1931

Romanov sisters, Grand Duchesses Maria, Olga, Anastasia, and Tatiana, ca 1910.

Marilyn Monroe, 1954

Posing for soldiers in Korea after a USO performance.

Henry David Thoreau, 1856

American author of Walden and Civil Disobedience

"An Oasis in the Badlands" ca. 1905

Red Hawk (Chetan-luta) of the Oglala Sioux on horseback in the Badlands of South Dakota.

Library of Congress original by Edward S. Curtis

Ernest Hare, ca. 1920

Comedian and singer Ernest Hare expressing his thoughts on Prohibition, ca. 1920.

May 27, 1944

Jewish women and children arriving at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in occupied Poland.

They were removed from the deportation trains onto the ramp where they faced a selection process - some were sent immediately to their deaths, while others were sent to slave labor.

This photo is from the Auschwitz Album, a collection of 193 photos that serve as the only surviving visual evidence of the process leading to the mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. More information can be found here.

San Francisco Earthquake, April 18, 1906

At Stanford University, a statue of Louis Agassiz falls 30 feet, piercing the concrete.

Charlie Chaplin, ca. 1920

English actor, comedian, and filmmaker.

Slivers, the Baseball Clown, ca. 1904

Legendary circus performer Frank "Slivers" Oakley, ca. 1904.
Known for his "One Man Baseball Game"

More information on Frank Oakley, also here.

Original B&W image provided courtesy of Gene Wolande, with great thanks to Ed & Marilyn Merritt.

Coney Island, New York, ca. 1905

Luna Park Promenade

Click image for high-res

Library of Congress original

Titanic sinks on April 15, 1912

Outside the White Star Line offices in London, newspaper boy Ned Parfett sells copies of the evening paper bearing news of the disaster. (April 16, 1912)

Six years later at age 22, Parfett was killed during a German bombardment whilst serving in France, just days before the end of World War I.

Louis Armstrong, 1946

Jazz legend Louis Armstrong, 1946. Aquarium, New York.

Library of Congress original

Boys buying flowers in New York, 1908.

Boys after buying Easter flowers in Union Square, New York, 1908.

Library of Congress original

Dust Bowl, 1936.

"Dust is too much for this farmer's son in Cimarron County, Oklahoma". Dust bowl, 1936.

Library of Congress original

Australian Mugshots Gallery

Selection of 1920s Australian mugshots from the New South Wales Police Dept., via the Justice & Police Museum, Historic Houses Trust.

View gallery

"Girls deliver ice." 1918

"Heavy work that formerly belonged to men only is being done by girls. The ice girls are delivering ice on a route and their work requires brawn as well as the patriotic ambition to help." September 16, 1918.

Audrey Hepburn

Walt Whitman, 1887

American poet, essayist, and journalist

Marie Curie, ca. 1905

Physicist and chemist, pioneer in radioactivity research.

Civil Rights March on Washington, 1963

Abraham Lincoln, 1865

16th United States President

Red Baron, 1917

Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the "Red Baron".

Ivan Pavlov, ca. 1920.

Russian physiologist

Baseball legend "Babe" Ruth, ca. 1920

Waldwick Train Station, ca. 1903

Waldwick, New Jersey

"Alex", 1923

A prize winning police dog who "smokes cigarettes n' everything".

Nikola Tesla, 1893

Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist.

Australian Mugshots Gallery

Series of "special photographs" taken by New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930.

Color establishes a renewed familiarity with the past.

There is an element of detachment that we have from historic black and white images. It's as if they are only shadows from a time too long ago for any of us to remember. With our modern eyes, we are somehow disconnected from the real and vibrant world those photos are actually portraying. By adding color to these images of history, the viewer is brought a little closer to the reality in which they were taken. Color helps to give a little bit of a glimpse into the world as it was from long ago, an opportunity to see perhaps something like what the photographer themself saw through their lens.

Color can force us to instantly see an old photograph with a new perspective, and make it seem as if the past it portrays wasn't that long ago after all.

In need of a little color?

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Colorization

Colorization

Australian Mugshots Gallery

Color establishes a renewed familiarity with the past.

In need of a little color?

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