Two Guys, One Huge Fish

The state of Delaware has announced a new online photo collection — over 2000 images of Delaware in the 1920s and 1930s, taken from the state’s Board of Agriculture glass negative collection. The collection is available here (giant messy URL alert.)

These pictures are wonderfully random. Stones marking the corners of Delaware? Check. Shipment of chickens going to Argentina? Check. All kinds of buildings? Check. Two guys holding a huge fish? Check. Electrical meter from 1936? Check. Tomato inspection shed? Check.

(Some of the items are also NOT for young audiences. There are also several murder scene pictures here and at least one image of a corpse. Please use caution when visiting this site and don’t let your kids/students run around in it without supervision.)

Hold your mouse over a picture for a tool tip with further description and a date. When you click on a picture to look at it more closely, it shows up full size, and you can shrink it or pan around to see the whole thing. This is unusual but useful as many of the pictures are landscape pictures, and this is an easy way to quickly see details. While looking at the detail page you can also rotate the images, print them, or download them in a few different sizes. (Note that the Delaware Public Archives does claim rights for these pictures and written permission is required to reuse them, which might be why they’re not in Flickr Commons.)

Auto racing at the Delaware fair

You can do a simple keyword search or an advanced search that lets you do field-level searching. A search for fair found 30 results, including lots of images and a couple of fantastic pictures of fair auto races from 1933.

A good presentation and it isn’t often you get such a large collection devoted solely to Delaware. Just use caution when browsing. Especially when it’s, like, 6am and you haven’t even had your coffee yet.