Historidex / In color

Early Color Photographs: Real Color From the Past

Real color from the past: early color plates, hand-colored prints and the first Kodachromes. None of these are colorized by software.

31 early color photographs stories

• Leo Tolstoy, in color 1908, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia

  The author of War and Peace at his estate in 1908, aged 79. Prokudin-Gorsky later recalled the exposure as about six seconds. Tolstoy died two years later.

• Hagia Sophia under the Ottomans 1890s, Constantinople, now Istanbul

  A photochrom from the 1890s, a black and white photo colored with printing plates. The building was finished in 537 and has been a cathedral, a mosque, a museum, and since 2020 a mosque again.

• Riveting a B-17 wing at Douglas 1942, Long Beach, California

  Douglas Aircraft didn't design the B-17. It joined Boeing and Vega to build the bomber, and its Long Beach plant turned out about 3,000. In October 1942 this woman was riveting wing ribs to reinforce B-17F inner wings.

• A Glass Nose for a Flying Fortress 1942, Long Beach, California

  The B-17F gave its bombardier an enlarged, nearly frameless Plexiglas nose. This woman at Douglas's Long Beach plant is putting the finishing touches on one, in what the Library of Congress caption calls a glass house.

• Drilling a Dive Bomber in Nashville 1943, Nashville, Tennessee

  She is drilling a Vengeance dive bomber at Vultee's plant in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 1943. The Royal Air Force flew the Vengeance in front-line combat, and its first dive-bombing sorties against Japanese forces came on March 19, 1943.

• A Dam Built in 382 Days 1942, Douglas Dam, Tennessee

  TVA's Douglas Dam in Tennessee was finished in 12 months and 17 days, which TVA calls a world record for a project its size. Congress approved it in January 1942 to power aluminum plants making aircraft. Alfred Palmer photographed this crane operator in June 1942.

• Tennessee's Man Made Badlands 1939, Ducktown, Tennessee

  Copper miners cut the forests around Ducktown, Tennessee, to fuel open-air ore roasting, and the sulfur fumes killed the plants that remained. About 32,000 acres were damaged and the bare hills eroded, according to the TVA. Marion Post Wolcott photographed the scene in September 1939.

• The Parthenon in Color 1912, Acropolis, Athens, Greece

  Gaumont filmed the Parthenon in color in 1912, using a camera that shot red, green and blue frames at once. The Ottomans were storing gunpowder inside when a Venetian mortar round hit it on 26 September 1687 and blew out the middle of the building.

• Annabelle's Hand Tinted Dance 1895, New Jersey, USA

  Annabelle Moore danced for Edison's camera around 1895, and many prints of her Serpentine Dance were colored by hand. She had made her stage debut at 15, at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

• A Cliff Made of Sulphur 1943, Hoskins Mound, Texas

  This yellow cliff is a vat of sulphur at Freeport Sulphur's Hoskins Mound mine in Texas, photographed by John Vachon in May 1943. The mine used the Frasch process, which melts sulphur underground with superheated water. Railroad cars were loaded from the vat.

• The Caryatid Porch in Color 1912, Acropolis, Athens, Greece

  Five of the six stone maidens on this porch are the ancient originals in this 1912 film. Lord Elgin took the sixth to London in the early 1800s, and it is now in the British Museum. The five in Athens were swapped for casts around 1979.

• Civilian Pilots Hunting Submarines 1943, Bar Harbor, Maine

  Civil Air Patrol members exercise beside a patrol plane at Coastal Patrol Base 20 in Bar Harbor, Maine, in June 1943. A 2014 act of Congress credits the civilian coastal patrol with 173 radio reports of U-boat positions and 82 bombs dropped on submarines.

• Greek Vineyard Filmed in Color 1912, Corinth, Greece

  Our word currant comes from raisins of Corinth. This 1912 Gaumont film, shot in the Chronochrome color process, shows workers in a vineyard in its section on The District Around Megare and Corinth.

• A crowded Venice street, printed in color 1890s, Venice, Italy

  This view of a crowded Venice street is a photochrom, a color print made from a black and white photograph. Hans Jakob Schmid developed the process in Switzerland in the 1880s. The Detroit Publishing Company's 1905 catalog lists this view as Street near the Rialto.

• Cane Cutters Resting With Machetes 1941, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico

  Sugar cane workers rest with their machetes near Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, in December 1941. Jack Delano took the photo on an FSA assignment that kept him on the island into 1942. He moved there for good in 1946.

• Servicing the Super Chief 1943, Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Crews serviced the Santa Fe's Super Chief at Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March 1943, a job the Library of Congress caption says took five minutes. The train first left Chicago on May 12, 1936, with diesels pulling it on a schedule of just under 40 hours to Los Angeles.

• Washing a 5,400 Horsepower Locomotive 1943, Argentine, Kansas

  A worker washes a Santa Fe diesel freight locomotive in the roundhouse at Argentine, Kansas, in March 1943. The Library of Congress caption calls these locomotives 5,400 horsepower, the rating of a four-unit EMD FT set. Santa Fe was the largest single buyer of FTs.

• Sorting Freight Trains by Gravity 1942, Melrose Park, Illinois, USA

  Freight cars were pushed over a small hill and rolled by gravity onto the right track. This hump master at the Chicago and North Western's Proviso Yard, west of Chicago, ran a signal and switch system along the hump track in December 1942 and controlled the locomotives pushing trains over the top.

• Bombers Built Outdoors in Kansas 1942, Kansas City, Kansas

  B-25 bombers sit on the outdoor assembly line at North American Aviation in Kansas City, Kansas, almost ready for their first test flight, in an October 1942 photo by Alfred Palmer. The Kansas plant built about 6,600 of the 9,816 B-25s made.

• War Work at Corpus Christi 1942, Corpus Christi, Texas

  Virginia Young, right, was a supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Department at the Naval Air Base in Corpus Christi, Texas, in August 1942. The government caption calls her a Pearl Harbor widow and says she found housing for out-of-state women workers like Ethel Mann, who ran an electric drill.

• A Land Grant Village in Snow 1943, Trampas, Taos County, New Mexico

  Trampas, New Mexico, was settled by 12 Spanish families in 1751, and its adobe church dates from about 1760. By 1943, the government caption says, overgrazing and loss of range title had pushed this former sheep-raising village into migrant labor and subsistence farming.

• Two Marine Gliders on Tow 1942, Parris Island, South Carolina

  The Marine Corps trained glider pilots at Parris Island, South Carolina, and Alfred Palmer photographed these two gliders under tow there in May 1942. The program was soon cancelled, and neither the Navy nor the Marines ever used gliders in operations.

• The Only Woman Welder at Heil 1943, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  Enola O'Connell, 32, a widow, mother of one and former housewife, was the only woman welder at Heil and Co. in Milwaukee, according to the government caption. Howard Hollem photographed her for the Office of War Information in February 1943.

• Dinner in a Dugout 1940, Pie Town, New Mexico

  Faro Caudill's family eats dinner in their dugout home in Pie Town, New Mexico, in 1940. Russell Lee photographed the town's homesteaders for the Farm Security Administration, and this is one of his Kodachrome color slides.

• A Ribbon on a Calf's Tail 1940, Pie Town, New Mexico

  Tying a ribbon on a calf's tail was a feature attraction at the rodeo of the Pie Town, New Mexico, fair in October 1940. Rodeos today hold a similar event, ribbon roping, where a mounted roper catches a calf and a partner on foot pulls a ribbon from its tail.

• A Woman Rises From a Skillet 1899, France

  A devil lights a fire in a giant fireplace, and a woman in white robes rises out of a skillet to dance. Georges Méliès made the film in 1899. It was sold in France as La Danse du feu, and this print is hand colored.

• Kids Asleep at the Square Dance c. 1940, McIntosh County, Oklahoma

  At a square dance in a rural home in McIntosh County, Oklahoma, the children slept on a bed while the dancing went on. Russell Lee took this color slide for the Farm Security Administration in 1939 or 1940.

• Sideshow for Teddy the Wrestling Bear 1941, Rutland, Vermont

  A sideshow at the Vermont State Fair in Rutland advertised Teddy the Wrestling Bear, live monsters and a banner reading ALL ALIVE. Jack Delano took the photo in September 1941. The fair dates to 1846.

• Women Wiping Down Locomotives 1943, Clinton, Iowa

  Marcella Hart and Viola Sievers worked as wipers on the Chicago and North Western Railroad, cleaning one of its giant H class locomotives at Clinton, Iowa, in April 1943. The railroad bought 35 of these 4-8-4 engines from Baldwin in 1929.

• Camouflaging a Model Factory 1943, New York, New York

  At New York University in March 1943, a student corrects the camouflage on a model defense plant after photographs revealed oversights. Boeing's Plant 2 in Seattle was hidden the same way, under a fake neighborhood of plywood house shells and streets.

• A Pompeii Garden in Color 1890 to 1900, Pompeii, Italy

  The House of the Vettii is named for two bronze seals found in its atrium in December 1894. They carried the names Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva, both freed slaves. This color photochrom of the restored garden dates from 1890 to 1900.

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