As a teacher, I was always on the lookout for useful historical photographs of places. And it was always tough. Pre-internet, it was even tougher.
Now it’s a bit easier but still difficult to find geo-tagged images. Google images has been helpful as has the Panaramio layer in Google Earth. But most of those types of images are current, geo-tagged photos, rather than historical.
I recently ran across a site called HistoGrafica that should help history teachers find historical, geo-tagged images:
HistoGrafica is a community-driven website with high aims – making a large amount of historical pictures easily accessible in one place on the web. Everyone can share and describe their old pictures on HistoGrafica and help expand this free archive.
You simply type in a geographic place – city, state, zip code, country – and using a Google Maps interface, HistoGrafica will display all of the images in its database for that region. You can zoom in or out, drag around and select individual or group photos. Pretty slick.
Some areas have very few images but since users can add photos to the database, that should change as more people jump on the bandwagon.
Teachers can use the site to find useful images for their own presentations, hook activities and projects while students could use the site for assignments and research.
Pre-internet? Wow, I have heard of that…was that back when phones were permanently plugged into walls?
I love how you use all the “new technologies” to connect with the past.
There is the old paradigm that we don’t need new resources in History classes since we are talking about the old stuff anyway. You do a nice job of showing how the mix of the historic and current can lead to powerful learning.
Wouldn’t it be fun to start with an older image, say the landscape of Topeka when the capital was built, and then contrast it with the current image?
Questions would then abound!
What is different?
Are there any clues that could tell us the approximate date of the pictures?
What seems to have made the greatest impact in the state’s economic system? Can we tell?
Can we tell anything about the rate of growth between the two pictures? What historical events might explain this (these) rates?
Has Kansas been influenced by any particular architecture styles?
How does the growth (change in landscapes) compare to other capitals? What might be one that would seem to have a slower growth? A greater growth? (predict and then compare)
What fun! Thanks Glenn.
Adelyn
Yes, pre-internet. When we actually used print media. After electricity but before Google. I’m old, okay?
It is pretty cool stuff, though, isn’t it?
You mention contrasting old with new pics? Your wish is my command! How about this?
LookBackMaps – http://www.lookbackmaps.net
“LookBackMaps is a collection of historical photographs that can be compared to the same current view as seen on Google Maps Street View.
The photographs are geotagged and displayed on a Google Map. Users of the map can select a date range for the photographs that they wish to view. To view a photograph alongside the current Street View just click on any of the pictures inside the information windows.
To add your own historical photographs to the map you just need to register with LookBackMaps.”
It may not be exactly the wider view type of photograph that you might be thinking of though still pretty cool! (But I am going to steal you great questions.)
Thanks for the comment!
glennw