Penobscot Marine Museum Gets a Boost to Preserve Old Glass Plate Negatives

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The Glass Plate Image Archive

The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine has received $3,387.50 from Maine’s Historical Collections Grant program to preserve and further provide better access to a collection of 30,000 glass plate negatives from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company.

The publishing company was one of the largest producers of photo postcards in the U.S. and it took pictures all over Maine and in other parts of New England and New York.

These photos, taken from 1880 to 1940, are now available for viewing, research, acquisition, publishing and exhibition at the Penobscot Marine Museum.

The pictures tell a story of a different time, showing cities, small towns, and rural areas and provide an unprecedented view of life in the early twentieth century.

PMM said the Collections Grant will help them preserve these images and share them with the public through cataloging, digitizing, and posting them on a website, as well as housing the original plates appropriately. The process is well under way, and the grant will enable the museum to finish housing the plates in archival storage folders and boxes according to PMM.

[Site: GlassPlateImages.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.