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The Library of Congress has put online more than 6,000 old full color “photochroms” from around the United States and the world that are of high interest to genealogists. These images date from the 1890s to the 1910s. Genealogists will want to search this collection for images from the areas around their ancestral home towns.

Source: Library of Congress, Maison du France, Bruges, Belgium. [between ca. 1890 – ca. 1900] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2001697894/. Title from the Detroit Publishing Co., catalogue J, foreign section. Detroit, Michigan: Detroit Publishing Company, ca. 1905. Print no. “6408.”

According to the Library of Congress guide to this collection:

“[These] richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches.

“Like postcards, [these] photochroms feature subjects that appeal to travelers, including landscapes, architecture, street scenes, and daily life and culture. The prints were sold as souvenirs and often collected in albums or framed for display.

“These prints were created by the Photoglob Company in Zürich, Switzerland, and the Detroit Publishing Company in Michigan.”

Search this collection here: https://www.loc.gov/collections/photochrom-prints/about-this-collection/

Inventory

Click the links below to see the images for the country/area that interests you.