	The American Landscape Project

Page Description

The following page is a two column layout. Page sections are identified with headers. The footer contains update, contact and emergency information.

Home- under construction

Search Links

Find Photos in the Archive

There are several ways of retrieving or viewing photos in the gallery.

Archive Categories

I House: Williamsport, Ohio

The I house pictured here, is a typical example of the type of photo included in this archive.

To find this photo, you can search through the archives by key terms associated with this photo. Each photo is cataloged by architectural characteristics (I-House), regional identification (Midwest); absolute location (Williamsport, Ohio); and by one or more general categories (folk housing, agriculture). See discussion below for additional information.

Absolute Location

Each photo in this archive hs been assigned at least one indicator of the location of the photo. If precise coordinates are available, the photo is geotagged with latitude and longitude coordinates.City, county, state and ZIP code are also included in the archive when such data is available.When the actual location is unknown, an estimated location is assigned to the photo.

Region

Because this archive was originally developed as a teaching tool, regional identification tags have been added to each photo when it is reasonable to do so.

Topic

The photos in the archive have also been categorized by at least one and as many as three topics or themes.

Key Term and Title

Each photo has a title in the file name, which also frequently includes one or more key terms.

Examples:

Click any of the links below to see sample photos, along with the applied identifers.

Contact

Dr. Steven M. Graves
Geography Department
130-B Sierra Hall
CSU Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330-8249

Phone: (818) 677-3517
Fax: (818) 677-2723
steve.graves@csun.edu

Welcome to the American Landscape Project Web Site - Under Reconstruction

Welcome!

The American Landscape Project is a free, online, archive of photos and slides chronicling the built environment of the United States.

Most of the photos were taken by geographers and include a stunning variety of landscapes, topics, regions, and eras. Much of it is mundane, ordinary, vernacular and wonderful. Some of the collection chronicles the unique, different, exotic and weird.

Some of the photography is quite good. Much of it suffers from the limitations of the photographic technology of the past, especially the old slide film; and photographic skills of those who have contributed to this collection.

Nonetheless, this is a valuable archive of photos that I hope students of the American Landscape will find useful, educational and fun. Hopefully, it will spur your own exploration of America.

The site is under construction and will remain under construction for the foreseeable future as the collection is placed online.

How to use the archive

You can find photos by searching through the archive either with a Google Map, spreadsheet or via a search engine.

What sort of photos are archived at this site?

Much of what is archived at this web site are photos of the American vernacular landscape. There are lots of photos of ordinary buildings, folk architectures, gas stations, motels, road signs, churches, parks, restaurants, etc.

To those who have learned to see as a geographer, there is much more; infinitely more.

What happened to this site?

A few years ago, just as this site was beginning to get visitors, it became clear to me that this web site was badly failing to comply with proper accessibility standards. My web authoring skills, limited as they are, prohibited me from making the needed upgrades. Several things have changed making a rebirth of this web site possible.

Look for additions to the collection and a much better search interface in the future.

This web site is dedicated in part to keeping alive the considerable legacy of John Brinckerhoff Jackson