Vintage | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Stettin, Germany (1890s)

20 March 2023 0

Stettin developed into a major Prussian port and became part of the German Empire in 1871. While most of the province retained its agrarian character, Stettin was industrialised, and its population rose from 27,000 in 1813 to 210,000 in 1900…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Valais, Switzerland (1890s)

8 March 2023 0

In the early 17th century, the aristocratic governors of the districts in the Upper Valais pressured the prince-bishop of Sion to abdicate secular power, which was achieved temporarily in 1613 and then permanently in 1634, when the country became the…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Hartz, Germany (1890s)

15 February 2023 0

As a young man, the famous German poet, Goethe visited the Harz several times and had a number of important lifetime experiences. These included his walks on the Brocken and his visit to the mines in Rammelsberg. Later, his observations…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Danzig (Gdańsk), West Prussia, Germany (1890s)

6 February 2023 0

Polish westerly Royal Prussia was annexed by the easterly Kingdom of Prussia during the late 18th century Partitions of Poland, with the city of Danzig becoming part of the Prussian Kingdom in 1793. The territory was administered in the new…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of County Donegal, Ireland (1890s)

24 January 2023 0

The modern County Donegal was shired by order of the English Crown in 1585. The English authorities at Dublin Castle formed the new county by amalgamating the old Kingdom of Tír Chonaill with the old Lordship of Inishowen. However, although…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of St. Gotthard Railway, Switzerland (1890s)

10 January 2023 0

By the early years of the 1870s, northern Switzerland had a significant network of railways, with links to the adjoining railways of Germany and France. To the west, a line had reached Brig, in the upper Rhone valley, from Lausanne.…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Wernigerode, Germany (1890s)

2 January 2023 0

Wernigerode was the capital of the medieval County of Wernigerode and Stolberg-Wernigerode. In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, it became part of the Prussian Province of Saxony. The Hasseröder brewery was founded in Wernigerode in 1872. After World War II,…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Pomerania, Germany (1890s)

21 December 2022 0

Prussia gained the southern parts of Swedish Pomerania in 1720, invaded and annexed Pomerelia from Poland in 1772 and 1793, and gained the remainder of Swedish Pomerania in 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars. The former Brandenburg-Prussian Pomerania and the former…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Towns in Bavaria, Germany (1890s)

13 December 2022 0

When Bavaria became part of the newly formed German Empire, this action was considered controversial by Bavarian nationalists who had wanted to retain independence from the rest of Germany, as had Austria. As Bavaria had a heavily Catholic majority population,…

Vintage: Regrading in Seattle (1900s)

4 December 2022 0

Seattle’s first 58 regrades “consisted largely of cutting the tops off high places and dumping the dirt into low places and onto the beach”. The most dramatic result of this was along that former beach, filling the land that constitutes…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Grisons, Switzerland (1890s)

23 November 2022 0

In 1798, the lands of the canton of the Grisons became part of the Helvetic Republic as the canton of Raetia except Valtellina, which was separated in 1797 for joining the Cisalpine Republic. It was later part of the Empire…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Harz, Germany (1890s)

17 November 2022 0

Around 1800, large swathes of the Harz were deforested. The less resistant spruce monoculture, that arose as a consequence of the mining industry in the Upper Harz, was largely destroyed by a bark beetle outbreak and a storm of hurricane…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Blackpool, England (1890s)

12 November 2022 0

The most significant event in the early growth of the town occurred in 1846, with the completion of a branch line to Blackpool from Poulton on the main Preston and Wyre Joint Railway line from Preston to Fleetwood. Fleetwood declined…

Vintage: Hooverville in New York City (1930s)

30 October 2022 0

Homelessness was present before the Great Depression, and was a common sight before 1929. Most large cities built municipal lodging houses for the homeless, but the Depression exponentially increased demand. The homeless clustered in shanty towns close to free soup…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland (1890s)

24 October 2022 0

Lake Lucerne is singularly irregular and appears to lie in four different valleys, all related to the conformation of the adjoining mountains. The central portion of the lake lies in two parallel valleys whose direction is from west to east,…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bavaria, Germany (1890s)

9 October 2022 0

Since 1803, the town has been a part of Bavaria. The famous German landscape painter Eugen Bracht visited Rothenburg in 1877; although he stayed only two days, he was clearly impressed. Some years later, especially artists of Romanticism, such as…

Vintage: Oil derricks in California (1920s-1930s)

2 October 2022 0

Offshore drilling began in California in 1896, when operators in the Summerland Oil Field in Santa Barbara County followed the field into the ocean by drilling from piers built out over the ocean. At least 187 offshore oil wells were…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Colberg (Kołobrzeg), Pomerania, Germany (1890s)

25 September 2022 0

In the early 19th century, the town’s medieval fortifications were demolished and replaced by parks. The duke also started the collection of copperplate engravings that is today part of the Veste Coburg museum. Under his son, Ernest, the Schlossplatz with…

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Thuringia, Germany (1890s)

18 September 2022 0

The modern German black-red-gold tricolour flag’s first appearance anywhere in a German-ethnicity sovereign state, within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778 as the state flag of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a defunct principality in the modern state’s borders. Some…

Vintage: Old Cincinnati Library

14 September 2022 0

In 1874 the project of the “Old Main” Public Library was completed at 629 Vine Street with a capacity capable of holding close to 300,000 books. The interior was designed by J.W. McLaughlin and contrasted the bleak exterior of the…

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