Curated OER
Exploring History Through Photographs
A fascinating series of four lessons on how photography and society have evolved over time. These lessons bring in elements of art, math, social studies, and geography. Everyone gets to make maps, look at old photos, and take part in a...
Curated OER
Romanticism
Glide through the 1800's with this wonderful image driven presentation. Each slide provides vivid examples of art that defined turn of the century Romanticism. This presentation spans both art typical of the movement in Europe and America.
Library of Congress
Loc: The Empire That Was Russia, Photographic Record Recreated
The digital revival of the glass plate images of the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I by photographer Sergei Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorskii. Very interesting from both historical and technological points of view.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Learning Lab: Every Picture Has a Story
Smithsonian Education presents "Every Picture Has a Story". Teachers can download this comprehensive teaching package in which students examine some of the millions of photographs in the Smithsonian. This amazing teaching package comes...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Education: Every Picture Has a Story
This retrospect on photography looks at the history of this art form and compares it to its function today.
Other
History and Discovery of Cinematography
Self-published textbook, by film historian Paul Burns, on the history of filmmaking. Covers pre-cinematic technologies and events and ends with the discovery of motion pictures in the late nineteenth century.
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer
Exhibit documents the life and work of early twentieth-century New York portrait photographer Zaida Ben-Yusuf, who broke with many of the conventions of portraiture and, thereby, attracted the attention of prominent artistic, literary,...
Other
Museum of the Moving Image: Optical Room
Take a tour through the history of moving images from the earliest times into the mid-1910s. The tour begins with pre-cinema devices and practices, including shadow plays and optical toys, and covers film and photography pioneers and...
George Eastman Museum
Eastmanhouse: Inventors in Imaging Technologies
See how George Eastman, Thomas Edison, and Wilhelm Roentgen impacted American film history and had inventions that were interrelated.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Comission
Explore Pa History: Robert Cornelius
A concise biographical sketch examining the life and contributions of early photographer and Pennsylvania native, Robert Cornelius.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Source: Invention: Every Picture Has a Story
Use this lesson plan to introduce learners to the history of photography and to the sorts of stories that historical photographs.
The Franklin Institute
Daguerreotype Cameras
Read about the Daguerreotype camera. This particular apparatus on display at the Franklin Institute was made in 1839, by Joaquim Bishop. Included on this site are activities for the classroom and resources for students to explore.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Eadweard Muybridge's Photography of Motion
From the National Museum of American History this is a description and analysis of the photography of expatriate Englishman Eadweard Muybridge. "Freeze Frame: Muybridge's Photography of Motion" iclude's examples of Muybridge's work...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Early Photography: Niepce, Talbot and Muybridge
Photography is a controversial fine art medium, simply because it is difficult to classify-is it an art or a science? Nineteenth-century photographers struggled with this distinction, trying to reconcile aesthetics with improvements in...
Smithsonian Institution
National Postal Museum: Art of the Stamp: Eadweard Muybridge
View the artwork for a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1996 to commemorate Eadweard Muybridge, the first to create the illusion of moving pictures. With a short biographical passage.
Curated OER
Lincoln Exhibition Image
At the Mask of Lincoln website find an impressive gallery of Lincoln portraits and portraits of Lincoln's contemporaries, all captioned with interesting historical sidebars. The famous cracked-plate portrait of Lincoln, taken shortly...