The State Historical Society of North Dakota's Photographic Collections contain images dating from 1870 to the present. Visit our online collections via Digital Horizons, an online scrapbook of images from the collections of North Dakota State University, Concordia College, Prairie Public, and the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
Patrons can order copies of original photographs. (Form available in .PDF format )[For a free Adobe Acrobat viewer, go to the Adobe Web Site] Please allow at least two weeks for delivery. Payment must accompany the request unless other arrangements have been authorized by the Photo Archivist. There is an additional charge for rush orders. (See Charges For Reference Services) No attempt is made to provide archival quality prints.
Reproduction of photographs from the collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota requires written approval. Forms for requesting permission to reproduce materials from the collections are available upon request. Photos used in publications must use a credit line identifying the State Historical Society of North Dakota, the photo number and, if appropriate, the specific photo collection.
The curators at the State Historical Society of North Dakota try to take care of all the photographs in the collections, following the highest standards and using only archival-quality materials. Photographs require special care to protect and preserve them.
A photographic image is formed by the action of light falling onto a base material which has been coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. This latent image may then be "developed" and "fixed" by further chemical processing. The emulsion coating in most modern photographs is usually gelatin, which incorporates either silver halide salsts to form black and white images, or dyes or pigments to form colour images. The base can be made from any material that can be coated with an emulsion, but the most common bases are paper and film.
Historical photographs may be daguerreotypes, using copper sheets and mercury vapors, or albumen prints made on very thin papers with an emulsion derived from egg whites. Early photographs were also made with supports of glass and metal and collodion emulsions. In the late 1880s glass negatives were replaced by a clear plastic film made from cellulose nitrate. This was superseded in the 1930s by "safety film" on cellulose triacetate. Triacetate is still used as a film base today in conjunction with polyester film which was introduced in 1960.
Documenting a Photograph
The most important part of a photograph is not the image itself, but the information about the content. Failing memories can lose important stories of the who, what, when, where and how of the photographs. So the very first step in caring for a family or historical collection is recording information about the images. Sit down with the images and record the names of the persons in the image, the date taken and the location. Write it out on either a separate paper or lightly on the back outside edge of the photograph in pencil. Additional information about the occasion when the images was taken, relationship of the person in the photograph, their birth and death dates, who took the image and if there is an original negative will help document the image for later generations.
Organizing Photograph Collections
Photographs may be organized chronologically, by name or by subject. If organizing by name, be sure to list surname and then first name. Women are often only identified by their husband's name--it is better to provide her first name and maiden name if possible. An index to the names and location of originals is very helpful to family members and can be created easily with current computer programs. For the advanced there are cataloging programs in which information can be stored with thumbnails of images. Organizing by year allows one to chronicle the history of a family and location. This can be very helpful in visually documenting a family tree. Subject matter may be used for simplicity of locating images of birds, animals, and locations, if many images exist.
Dont think that one person has to do all the word of identifying, organizing and storing the photographs: make it a family event to get together regularly and reminisce about people, places and events. The work will be part of the fun and will become part of a family legacy.
Storing Photographs
Correct handling of photographs will aid in preserving them for as long as possible.
DOs
DONTs
Sharing Photographs
In this age of digital photography sharing images has become easy. With scanning, you can create either printed or digital albums or scrapbooks or just email individual images with information to relatives or researchers.
Don't discard the originals! Either sleeve and house in archival boxes or prepare albums using acid-free materials. The originals have more allure than digitized versions.
Larger photographs can be matted and framed by a reputable framer using archival materials. Be sure to hang any images where they will be protected from long-term exposure to both sunlight and flourescent fixtures.
You may also drop the digitized verions of images into a family history, biography or autobiography using desktop publishing programs available on the open market.
Address:
612 East Boulevard Ave.
Bismarck, North Dakota 58505
Get Directions
Hours:
Exhibit galleries and Museum Store: 8am - 5pm M-F; Sat. & Sun. 10am - 5pm.
State Archives: 8am - 4:30pm., M-F, except legal holidays, and 2nd Sat. of each month, 10am - 4:30 pm.
State Historical Society offices: 8am - 5pm M-F, except legal holidays.
Contact Us:
phone: (701) 328-2666
fax: (701) 328-3710
email: histsoc@nd.gov
