The amazing collection of photographs displayed below was donated to the Kheel Center by Juanita Hadwin, a resident of British Columbia, Canada. As part of her volunteer duties in the curatorial department of a small local museum, she examined material awaiting addition to the collection. Among the items under consideration was a group of lantern slides that did not fit within their collecting mandate.

With the permission of the Curator, Ms. Hadwin began researching the images, preparing to offer them to other institutions where they would be preserved and made available with similar material. While establishing that these had to do with a fire in New York was easy, determining the date and the specific tragedy took much more time. In the end, it was her pleasure reading that solved the puzzle. In a thriller she was reading, the Triangle factory fire was mentioned and all the pieces fell together. Follow-up research on the Internet led her to the Kheel Center's Triangle Fire exhibit. Recognizing the value of these images to students and scholars, she generously offered them to the Center, and the lantern slides were added to this collection.

The slides have been cleaned and repaired as much as possible by skilled staff members of Cornell University Library's Department of Preservation and Collection Maintenance.

The "magic lantern" - the first projector - was invented in the 1650s, modified and refined, and used until the early 20th century. We believe this type of device was used to display the lantern slides in this collection. Read more...

Last update: 16 May 2003

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Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives,
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