Edward Penfield And The American Poster(Post)

    Edward Penfield’s first poster for Harper’s in 1893 shows a man in a green coat absorbed in reading a magazine while being splashed by raindrops; the display type accompanying the figure is as mat

    The Chicago World's Fair Invented The Best And The Worst(Post)

    In 1871, a fire started in the city of Chicago that burnt its buildings to cinder and ashes. After two days of the fire spreading through four miles of inner city, it naturally put itself out. It w

    Podcast: The American Library Association’s Library War Service(Post)

    Rare Pictures Capture Native Americans In Late 1800s (Post)

    This article appeared on the Voice of American "Learning English" website. The Library of Congress has a famous collection of Indian photographs taken by Edward Curtis. The above photograph of a Bla

    The American Library Association’s Library War Service(Post)

    “In the ability to reach, educate and affect the adult population the library occupies a position of great responsibility and is a great power for national defense.”  - Charles B. Alexander, spee

    Information About the Collections(Page)

    AMERICAN MEMORY A great revolution in the history of poster prints was the development of printing techniques that allowed for inexpensive, mass production. The most notable of these, lithography,...

    The Great Bartholdi Statue Of Liberty (Post)

     "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the gold

    “A Fortress Besieged By An Invading Army”: The Astor Place Riot(Post)

    On the evening of May 10, 1849, the British Shakespearean actor William Charles Macready, playing Macbeth, stepped onto the stage of the palatial Astor Place Opera House in lower Manhattan. Built i

    About(Page)

    Snapshots of the Past was founded in May 2001 in Pittsburgh. The business operated as a print seller for 15 years before closing in 2016. In 2023, it re-established it's web presence again.  We...

    The Gold Rush’s Hazy Grays(Post)

    John W. Marshall inadvertently made — and changed — history on January 24, 1848, when the carpenter found bits of gold at entrepreneur John Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. The men tried to keep

    Halloween(Post)

    Pictorial America - Copyright 2020, Snapshots of the Past

    Star Spangled Images(Post)

    Pictorial America - Copyright 2020, Snapshots of the Past