Curator Galleries: IMLS Lantern Slide Digitization Project

Check out GRPM's newest digitization project! The Museum has thousands of lantern slides being added to the online database. These rare and fragile images were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by GRPM staff as well as local and regional companies. They depict both local and international scenes, many with artistic hand-colored embellishments to bring the photograph to life. 

The magic lantern slides were widely circulated in the Grand Rapids Public Schools for decades. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the slides by researchers. Their interest lies in the significant role magic lanterns played in the history of technology and also as a visual resource, especially for local history. 

Thank you to IMLS for supporting this grant-funded project.