100 Year Old Color Photographs

(Above) Holland, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) French blueberry pickers, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Canada, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) French furniture movers, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Cowboys in Canada, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) A fine lady from France, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) The United States, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Switzerland, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Mongolian horseman, c. 1910. Click image for larger view.

(Above) A WWI airplane, photo c. 1918. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Amputees and other wounded in WWI, around 1919. Click image for larger view.

(Above) A little French girl amongst wartime materials, around 1919. Click image for larger view.

(Above) Digging graves during WWI, photo c. 1920. Click image for larger view.

IN THE EARLY PART OF THE 20th CENTURY, French-Jewish capitalist Albert Kahn set about to collect a photographic record of the world, the images were held in an ‘Archive of the Planet’. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was able to amass a collection of more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true color photography

Autochrome was the first industrial process for true color photography. When the Lumière brothers launched it commercially in June 1907, it was a photographic revolution - black and white came to life in color. Autochromes consist of fine layers of microscopic grains of potato starch – dyed either red-orange, green or violet blue – combined with black carbon particles, spread over a glass plate where it is combined with a black and white photographic emulsion. All colors can be reproduced from three primary colors.

Via Albert Kahn Museum and City Noise.