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Boston Athenaeum
Chromolithography in Boston, 1840-1910
Chromolithographs were an integral part of late nineteenth-century American culture. They hung in homes, businesses, hotels, railroad depots, and even art galleries. They were collected for picture albums, appeared in books and on sheet music covers, and were sent as greeting cards. Yet today, chromolithographs are virtually unknown outside of a small circle of collectors, curators, and dealers.
Boston and Albany Railroad Company and South Station
Boston & Albany R. R. – Boston Yard and Construction of South Station, Boston, Mass. are two distinct collections of cyanotype photographs recording the railroad infrastructure in Boston in the 1890s.
Menus from Boston Hotels
This collection of menus from the dining rooms of four Boston hotels dates from 1843 to 1865. Some menus were for the general public, while others were printed for special private dinners held for groups of gentlemen or committees involved with government of the City of Boston. Some are noteworthy for their decorative printing in colored and metallic inks, and for their amazing bills of fare.
Berenice Abbott Boston Photographs
These twenty-four photographs of Boston were taken in 1934 by the modernist photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991).
Additional Collections
Massachusetts State House Postcards
A selection of postcards from the State Library of Massachusetts.
Boston Fire Historical Society
history of fire department from the 1600s to 1859
Farber Gravestone Collection (American Antiquarian Society)
The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource containing over 13,500 images documenting the sculpture on more than 9,000 gravestones, most of which were made prior to 1800, in the Northeastern part of the United States
Images of the Antislavery Movement in Massachusetts (Massachusetts Historical Society)
This website presents digital images of 840 visual materials from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society that illustrate the role of Massachusetts in the national debate over slavery. Included are photographs, paintings, sculptures, engravings, artifacts, banners, and broadsides that were central to the debate and the formation of the antislavery movement.
Newspapers
Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window
Associated Press Images Collection is a searchable collection of recent and historical photos from the Associated Press, plus AP graphics, articles, and brief sound clips.
Boston's City Hall Plaza: Past & Future (Boston Globe Archive)
Click through to see architectural renderings of the proposed plans, images of the city before Government Center existed, and original designs of the area when it was first being conceived in the 1950s and '60s.
The City Seen (Boston Globe Archive)
Over the course of two years, Globe photographer Suzanne Kreiter captured hidden views, seldom-seen images, and unexpected sounds around Greater Boston. Click the photos below to see the mosaic of the city that developed.
Image Database
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
ARTstor is a database of images from museums, artists, libraries, colleges and universities, scholars, private collections, and photo archives available for teaching, education, and scholarship, with all images cleared for educational use.
