See the Mid-20th Century in Cushman Color

Hat tip to colleague Malissa Ruffner on Facebook for alerting us to Indiana University Archives' on-line collection of the photography of Charles Weever Cushman. The collection is easy to view and well categorized -- the heart is the more than 14,000 color slides from 1938 to 1969. Most-photographed years? 1965, 1952, and 1955. Most-photographed places: the US (11,374), United Kingdom (759), and Austria. Among the states, there are 4723 photographs of California, 2484 of Illinois, and 943 of Arizona. Cushman graduated from Indiana University and had some genealogical interests, so Indiana got 350, but Wisconsin (83), Ohio (20), and Michigan (6) don't get much attention. Thematically, landscape, architecture, and cityscapes are his commonest themes.

Few photos have names; many of the cityscapes, especially of Chicago, have addresses. There are some great "then and now" shots to be taken. If you want to see circuses from the 1940s, you're in luck. If you're bewildered, check out the highlights.


Harold Henderson, "See the Mid-20th Century in Cushman Color," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 29 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]