Hidden Views: Salvaging Historic Images at the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences

FAIN: PW-284976-22

Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (Buffalo, NY 14211-1208)
Rebecca Klie (Project Director: July 2021 to April 2025)

The digitization of 1,933 nitrate negatives from approximately 1920–1940, documenting the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, its research and educational activities, and scenes from the surrounding region.

This project aims to digitize almost 2000 historical nitrate negatives, securing their content and transforming a currently unstable and inaccessible collection of images into an available resource for research, publication, exhibition, and programming. The collection documents the early 20th century through photography, with a wide array of significant subject matter including the Society’s history, the natural history, pattern of development of collection, research, and public education in western New York, and the history of general science, natural life, and culture. We intend to increase intellectual control of these images, create accessibility, and promote scientific inquiry by distributing content through an open access data repository, NYHeritage.org. Digitization offers an opportunity to capture the content of these at-risk negatives, establish accessibility, and restore their usefulness as information resources valuable to the humanities for current and future generations.