In line with the Institute’s purpose of developing research and analytical models, ESSC together with the Ford Foundation committed to draw together resources from the University of Wisconsin and the Ateneo de Manila University to address the problems of collecting, archiving and analyzing historic photography for both environmental and historical applications.

The project aims to address these problems through training Philippine and American graduate students in field work, oral history, and the use of historical photographs for both general historical research and the study of environmental change. It also aims to establish digital archives of some 850 historical photographs for the historical study of human interaction with the environment.

This website is an online repository of the historical images and contemporary photographs as a result of the site research conducted.

Photographs have the potential to provide us with unique historical and environmental information. In addition to the pleasure that accompanies viewing images from the past, historical photographs also serve as the primary historical record of ecological change. This site makes accessible to historians and researchers alike, environmental photographs of the Philippines and the United States thereby contributing to the ongoing transformation of historical photographs from artifacts to documents. For the first time, digital technology allows for the widespread, low-cost reproduction and dissemination of images, effectively transforming the rare artifact into a “text” for public discussion and social action.

Photo Collections:

• Photo Gallery ca. 1920s

Acknowledgement:

The Philippine Environmental Photography Project Team would like to thank the Ford Foundation for supporting the production of this website.

The Project Team wishes to acknowledge the following institutions for sharing their archival photographs featured in this website:

- American Historical Collection, Rizal Library - Ateneo de Manila University ,Philippines.

- Owen Tomllinson Papers, from the Michigan Historical Collection of the Bentley Historical Library,
Ann Arbor, MI.

- Anthropology Division, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Illinois

- 1926 World Forestry Congress, School of Forestry Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT

- Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

- Manila Railroad Company, Album, US National Archives

- Red Book, US Army Sign Corps, US National Archives

- ICM Album- Mr. James Halsema for the Album of Mr. A.G. Williams, Chief Bureau of Highways,
Philippine Islands

Philippine Environmental Photography Project Team:

University of Wisconsin
Alfred McCoy, Steven McKay, Michael Papenfus, Caty Greene, Jenny Ganz

Ateneo de Manila University
Fr. Jose M. Cruz, S.J., Prof. David Keck, Aris Go, Vina Lanzona

ESSC and Friends
Peter Walpole, S.J., Jonathan Pilien, Cesar Aguinaldo ,Br. Gabriel Pestano, S.J., Pamela Tiongson, Maricel de Jesus