YOUR FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

by Beverly Mosman

Photographs are an integral part of the Oklahoma History Center.  Many of the photographs displayed in our exhibits and online are from personal family collections that have been donated to the OHS.   

Why do we request originals and not photocopies?  There are several reasons, two of which are the copyright problem and the quality of the reproduction. 

When originals are donated, a gift agreement is obtained from the donor stating that the OHS has the right to provide the image(s) to researchers, authors, publishers, museums, television and other media who may want to reproduce the image.   

Secondly, an original negative or photograph may be scanned and reproduced much more clearly than a photocopy or copy print. 

We welcome any information that can be provided on the photographs in our collections.  For instance, we sometimes receive emails that tell us, "...the man on the left beside the horse is my great-grandfather John Jones.  The photo was

taken on his farm in the early 1920's."   Any clues we can obtain to help identify photographs will help future researchers in their historical investigations.

If you have questions about your own family photographs, we would love to hear from you.  We can provide resources to answer questions about preservation, dating photographs, or how to donate your collection for public access. Moreover, we can work with you to provide digital scans of donated photos on DVD for to you to keep. For more information, please email Beverly Mosman at bmosman@okhistory.org or call (405)522-5208.

This photo of the famous Winnie Mae airplane was recently donated to the OHS by a lady who found it among items that had belonged to her grandparents.  She noted that she believed that "this is when the plane landed in 1931 at Chester, England."