213 Awesome Photo Archives

Awesome Photo Archives

I have been working for the past few weeks on a presentation that fellow Savvy Broad, Frances Lowe, roped me into. 

The Godfrey Miller Home has been hosting a series of lectures about the 275 years of Winchester history. On Tuesday, July 23 at 7 p.m., with Judy Humbert who is speaking about integration in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be speaking about Winchester benefactors in the early 1900s.

Frances assigned me to speak about John Kerr, Charlie Rouss, and Judge Handley. Much of the information I have to impart is not original research but is rather a recounting of their numerous gifts that resulted in many projects and buildings around Winchester. The real star of the presentation, I think, is the wonderful images from the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Library.

Since I have permission from Archives to reproduce the images for my presentation, but not in this blog, you will have to come to the Miller Home see the great photographs or wait until the whole series of lectures is reproduced in Winchester-Frederick-County Historical Society Journal. 

But I do encourage you to visit the library's webpage to view the photographs through software called PastPerfect:
https://www.handleyregional.org/services/departments/archives/photographs

On this page, click on Past Perfect Online Page to get to where you can search for pictures. Actually, your best bet to get started is to go to Archives and have a friendly staff member help you get the hang of it. If you want to download any photos to a memory stick, they will help you do that as well. There is usually a charge to download or to order copies. Why, you wonder, can't I simply copy it online? You can but there is a very big watermark in the middle of the image.

But you can simply enter a keyword and be amazed by the number of photos, with watermarks, that turn up.

I hope to see you on Tuesday!

By the way, on Thursday, July 25, 7 p.m., the final presentations in the lecture series will concentrate on the present state and future goals of our community, and they feature Eden Freeman, City Manager, and Kris Tierney, County Administrator.

The presentations on the 1700s and 1800s were excellent, and if you missed them, look for them in a future Winchester-Frederick-County Historical Society Journal. 

Trish Ridgeway