The Denver Public Library has an extensive digitized archive of photos and other materials. They have done a better job than many other archives in terms of making the resources easy to explore.
They have added galleries within the collection. They can be easily located through the tag cloud at https://history.denverlibrary.org/browse-galleries.
A few of my favorites are:
- Hipster Or History? – Fashion is cyclical, and contemporary fashion seems to mirror fashions of the past. Scroll these historic photos to find inspiration for your favorite fashions of today whether it be mustaches, high waisted shorts, chokers, thick rimmed glasses, brimmed hats, or plaid.
- Notable Moustaches Of The West – Some of these are really great, but some guys look like they would have made awesome silent movie villains.
- Lakeside Amusement Park – This set includes some gorgeous night photos of the park as well as a roller coaster car full of a small orchestra.
- Costume Ideas Our Grandparents Taught Us – From circus performers to stage shows – these outfits are fabulous. The collection curator posted about it with: “Halloween was a minor event until it came of age in the 1950s, and only in the last 10 or 15 years has it become the all-out extravaganza it is, now, in the 2010s.” This gallery includes a photo of a Ku Klux Klan Ladies Auxiliary.
- Ladies’ Hairstyles of the 1920s – This has great examples of both hair and outfits.
- Happy Mother’s Day – This collection covers about a century and includes mother and child photos from among both Native Americans and European settler families.
- Beer And The Old West – “Since the first weary Colorado miners came down from the hills into Denver with gold to spend and a hankering for beer, enterprising immigrants with the know how filled that need with a wide selection of lagers, stouts, ales and pilsners etc. Big names like Coors, Zang, Tivoli, are but a few among the almost countless small breweries that flourished in Colorado’s many boom towns. (Source)”
- The Parks Album – “The “Parks Album” was acquired by the Western History Department in the 1930’s, with no documentation or other information. It appears to be an inventory of buildings and facilities in the Denver City & Mountain Parks network. There are many interesting “small architecture” examples that will interest builders or “tiny house” aficionados.” (Source)
- Works Progress Administration Photographs – “The Work Projects Administration or “WPA,” was the largest and most ambitious of the American New Deal agencies. It employed millions of unskilled workers, mostly men, in all kinds of public works projects, building bridges, schools, dams, and public venues.” (Source)
- Camp Nizhoni – “Camp Nizhoni”, whose name was derived from the Navajo word for “beautiful,” was established by the Phillis Wheatley branch of the YMCA. Due to segregation, African-American women and girls were prohibited from attending the YMCA girl’s camp at Lookout Mountain in Colorado. With the help of the Lincoln Hills Development Corporation, the YMCA was able to permanently establish Camp Nizhoni at Lincoln Hills. The integration of the YMCA’s Camp Lookout in 1945 closed the formal chapter on the history of Camp Nizhoni but its impact remains to this day.
Possible Silent Movie Villain
Girls at Camp Nizhoni
KKK Ladies Auxilliary
Orchestra on Roller Coaster
The wonderful work of archivists have preserved far more material than we usually see. Our goal here is to unearth and present some of the stuff we never saw in school.