A long line of innovators working to democratize nostalgia.

Joining an established effort

“Established institutions like the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, websites like eBay and Ancestry, and initiatives like the Digital Library Program and the Google Books Library Project are all striving to preserve a national archive of culture and create a more developed and inclusive perspective on American history. Snapshots of the Past, a recent addition to this effort, hopes to continue and extend the archiving work of these companies, making historical images even more accessible to ordinary citizens around the country and around the globe. Founded in 2001, [Lantos’] company soon became one of the first to make available as prints some of the rare collections of images held at the Library of Congress.

Getting the images out of the vault

Early on, Snapshots of the Past recognized the huge interest in historical objects that might be available from source materials found in libraries. The ever expanding archives of the Library of Congress have long been inaccessible to ordinary citizens and restricted only to librarians, researchers and visitors with special permission. Snapshots came to understand how it could combine technological advances in offset printing in order to open up these materials to people who wished to own a copy of the Library’s rare maps, photos or other artwork. [He] and his company have joined a long line of innovators working to democratize nostalgia, and make it more accessible. In this way, the company’s mission is similar in scope to that of mass-production lithographers of the early 1800s.”

“On Nostalgia” · Michael J. Simpson, MA History, Brown University
Read the full article →