Architectural Lantern Slides
Location
Architecture Library, Hesburgh Libraries
The University of Notre Dame's Architecture Library holds a set of about 4,500 "lantern slides" produced by the French company G. Massiot & cie. The collection is undated, but the photographs appear to have been taken between approximately 1870 and 1914, primarily between 1890 and 1910. Lantern slides were most popular, and often sold as pedagogical sets, in the early decades of the 20th century. European architecture, with approximately 2,900 of the photographs, is the primary focus of the collection. Most come from France (~1,000) and Italy (~800); other countries are represented, but in significantly lower numbers. Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas combined are pictured in fewer than 500 slides. The remaining ~1,200 photographs represent paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts. In 2007, the slides were cleaned and transferred to archivally-sound storage boxes. A selection of about 2,700 were scanned as 4800 DPI TIFFs, and lower-resolution versions were loaded into a Flickr collection. An image cataloger was hired to prepare records for each. Although detailed and modern images of many of these sites exist, the lantern slides present an historical look at the sites, including many bystanders and artifacts which were intentionally or unintentionally a part of the image. The Egyptian set includes images of workmen and bearers, in attire of the period and using tools of the time. Many European images include photographs of persons in attire of the period. Means of conveyance from ox- or horse-drawn wagon to automobiles and streetcars are in the background of some images. The lantern slides may therefore be of interest to a wider audience than architecture historians and students. **Arrangement:** The slides are arranged into country-level sub-collections based on notes taken from the original lantern slides. Because these images were created during the late 19th and early 20th century, the names of these countries reflects the countries and occupied colonial territories of the time. Collections include information about the 2017 name of the country as well as older place names. Images themselves generally have more modern location data, often including latitude and longitude, included.
Our collection information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. If you have spotted an error, please contact Architecture Library, Hesburgh Libraries at asklib@nd.edu.

Architectural Lantern Slides of Algeria

Architectural Lantern Slides of Austria

Architectural Lantern Slides of Belgium

Architectural Lantern Slides of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czechia)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Bolivia

Architectural Lantern Slides of Brazil

Architectural Lantern Slides of Cambodia

Architectural Lantern Slides of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Croatia

Architectural Lantern Slides of Egypt

Architectural Lantern Slides of France

Architectural Lantern Slides of Germany

Architectural Lantern Slides of Greece

Architectural Lantern Slides of Guatemala

Architectural Lantern Slides of India (includes present-day Pakistan)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Indochina (present-day Viet Nam)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Indonesia

Architectural Lantern Slides of Italy

Architectural Lantern Slides of Jordan

Architectural Lantern Slides of Lebanon

Architectural Lantern Slides of Mexico

Architectural Lantern Slides of Myanmar

Architectural Lantern Slides of Netherlands

Architectural Lantern Slides of Palestine (includes present-day Israel)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Panama

Architectural Lantern Slides of Paraguay

Architectural Lantern Slides of Persia (present-day Iran)

Architectural Lantern Slides of Peru

Architectural Lantern Slides of Portugal

Architectural Lantern Slides of Russia (includes present-day Ukraine and Georgia)