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Staff in garage of Am. i.e., American Colony Buick Dodge Agency

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Staff in garage of Am. i.e., American Colony Buick Dodge Agency

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Summary

Title from negative sleeve.
Gift; Episcopal Home; 1978.

The American Colony in Jerusalem was a Christian utopian community that was established in Jerusalem in the late 19th century. The community was founded by a group of American and Swedish Christian fundamentalists who were drawn to the city for religious reasons. They arrived in Jerusalem in 1881 and established a commune in the Old City, where they lived, worked, and worshiped together. The American Colony became well-known for its photography and film production, with members of the colony, who were mainly photographers, capturing the life, culture, and landscape of Palestine and Jerusalem. The American Colony continued to exist until the 1940s when the community was dissolved and its members dispersed.

The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection is a source of historical images of the Middle East. The majority of the images depict Palestine (present-day Israel and the West Bank) from 1898 to 1946. Most of the Library of Congress collection consists of over 23,000 glass and film photographic negatives and transparencies created by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor firm, the Matson Photo Service. The American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem was one of several photo services operating in the Middle East before 1900. Catering primarily to the tourist trade, the American Colony and its competitors photographed holy sites, often including costumed actors recreating Biblical scenes. The firm’s photographers were residents of Palestine with knowledge of the land and people that gave them an advantage and made their coverage intimate and comprehensive. They documented Middle East culture, history, and political events from before World War I through the collapse of Ottoman rule, the British Mandate period, World War II, and the emergence of the State of Israel. The Matson Collection also includes images of people and locations in present-day Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. Additionally, the firm produced photographs from an East African trip. The collection came to the Library of Congress between 1966 and 1981, through a series of gifts made by Eric Matson and his beneficiary, the Home for the Aged of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Los Angeles (now called the Kensington Episcopal Home).

date_range

Date

01/01/1920
place

Location

Jerusalem
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Source

Library of Congress
copyright

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