Ninth
Bombardier Group, Mitchell Field, 3/13/37
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Photography Collection, Harry
Ransom, Humanities Research Center, The University of
Texas, at Austin
The exhibit features “yard-longs,”
the huge panoramic photographs, which caused a sensation
in the early decades of the 20th century after the introduction
of the Cirkut camera in 1904. Manufactured for many
years by the Folmer & Schwing Division of Eastman
Kodak, these remarkable cameras were used to record
scenic vistas, disasters, epic events as well as group
photos of conventioneers, workers, soldiers and students.
Collectively, they captured a remarkable portrait of
Long Island and America at the outset of the last century.
The exhibition includes vintage photographs
of such Long Island scenes as the construction of the
first Bayville Bridge, Doubleday’s Country Life
Press, the 1939 World’s Fair, factory workers
at the Seversky plant in Farmingdale and the soldiers
of Camp Upton. Among the views from beyond the region
are, San Francisco on fire after the 1906 earthquake,
the fiftieth anniversary encampment at Gettysburg in
1913 and the wreckage of the battleship, U.S.S. Maine.
Visitors will also see the clockwork driven cameras
that took these pictures and a special section featuring
two Long Islanders who still own and use Cirkut cameras—Bob
Lang of Port Jefferson and Ray Jacobs of Roslyn.
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