A photograph archive: Central Ohio water, sewers, houses and bathrooms in the public record

Where do the historical photographs of Central Ohio on this site come from?

From public archives that publish them with a rights statement allowing reuse: the Columbus Metropolitan Library's digital collections, including the city engineer's own survey photographs and the Ohio postcard collection; the Library of Congress, which holds the Sanborn fire insurance maps and several early photographs; and Wikimedia Commons, where library and federal images have been uploaded. Every caption names the archive, the item's identifier and the rights statement, and links to the archive's own record.

Can a photograph from this archive page be used somewhere else?

That depends on the archive's statement, which the caption quotes and links. A statement of no known copyright, no known restrictions, or public domain means the archive knows of no restriction on reuse; a Creative Commons statement names a license that requires attribution and sometimes sharing under the same terms. This site reproduces each picture on the strength of that statement and gives no legal advice; anyone reusing a picture should read the statement at the archive and decide for themselves.

Why are some historical photographs described on the site but not shown?

Because their archives mark them as copyrighted or copyright undetermined, or say that reuse needs permission. The Godman Guild photograph with its Bath Open Daily sign, an Ohio History Connection citizenship class at the South Side Settlement, the Upper Arlington archives' newspaper page and the Columbus Dispatch's 1959 flood photographs are among them. Each is recorded in the research record with the archive to ask, and none is reproduced on the site until that archive says yes.

What do the Sanborn fire insurance maps on this page show about water?

Their title blocks. The Sanborn mapmakers surveyed a town for insurers and printed, beside the map, a short report on its water facilities and fire department: for Delaware in February 1885 the word Indifferent and a count of eighteen public cisterns, for Westerville in June 1894 the verdict Water Facilities: Not Good, for Worthington in September 1922 a standpipe system with the pressure in its mains. A sheet from before a town's water works and a sheet from after are the before-and-after of the pipes.

Who made the photographs of sewer construction in Columbus?

The city's own survey photographers, working for its engineering contracts. The prints in the Columbus Metropolitan Library's Columbus Memory collection carry the contract name, the street corner, the date and often the hour on their backs, which is why a photograph of a brick street in 1948 or 1935 can be dated to the day and tied to a named relief sewer or sanitary sewer contract. Where the library's record names the photographer, the caption repeats the name.

How are the pictures on this page dated?

By the archive's own record, and only that. A city survey photograph carries its date on the print; a postcard is dated by the archive from its printing or postmark; a book plate takes the book's date; a Sanborn sheet carries its month and year in the title block. Where the archive gives a range or a circa, the caption repeats it as given, and where the archive gives no date the caption says undated. The pages that use a picture say when it postdates the fact they describe.

Which pages on the site use these photographs?

The place histories, which follow water, sewers and bathrooms through fourteen Central Ohio neighborhoods and towns, and the building-history pages on the incidents behind Ohio's rules, what goes wrong in a Central Ohio house, and what Ohio made for houses. Each picture was gathered for one of those pages, and the caption's note on what it shows is the researcher's reason for pulling it. The pages themselves cite documents rather than pictures; the photographs illustrate what the documents say.

Are the photographs shown here the archives' full-size originals?

No. The copies on this page are reduced to no more than 1,200 pixels on the long side so the page loads quickly, and the site keeps the larger copies the archives serve, typically 2,000 pixels and, for the Sanborn sheets, up to 6,500, in its own records. Each caption links to the archive's record, where the original can be viewed or downloaded at the size and under the terms the archive offers.