The Perfect Photo

May 31, 2012 12:31 PM

North Americana Filter: Find the 10 best pictures taken from each decade onwards from 1910 to 2010?

I have always been fascinated by the rapid development of the USA and Canada. Is there a website or tools that do this?

posted by Funmonkey1 to media & arts (8 answers total)

1930s - Empire State Lunch break

1940s - VJ day - Times Square kiss

2000s - Fire-fighters and Flag at Ground Zero
posted by Flood at 12:42 PM on May 31, 2012

1900s_(decade)
posted by goethean at 12:48 PM on May 31, 2012

I'm a little confused at what you are looking for here. Are these just iconic images of North America from the decades?

Incidentally, North America is a lot more than just New York, where all your samples are from!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:57 PM on May 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here are some photos from Life Magazine

Also, 13 Photographs That Changed the World

And American Photography: A century of Images
posted by marimeko at 12:58 PM on May 31, 2012

1943
1948

(The photographer of the second picture, Andreas Feininger, is well worth googling for)
posted by Namlit at 1:07 PM on May 31, 2012

It's a dream question for arcivists and reference librarians. You can have a lot of fun searching for and debating the "10 best" photos of every decade, and it sounds like a very fine idea for a site or blog.

Places to search:

The Library of Congress' American Memory online collection
Historic Photo Archive
Shorpy
Historic Image Collections, Photographic Libraries - many links
World Press Photo contest winners archive
Pulitzer PRize for Photography Winners

And so on. You could have plenty of debate, as well, as to what kinds of photos qualify. Does it have to be of notable events during the decade? Or just images that express the zeitgeist of that decade, or social movements that were going on, like women riding bicycles in the teens?
posted by Miko at 3:14 PM on May 31, 2012

Vintage Toronto is a popular source of photographs of the old Toronto. They have a Facebook group and a blog.
posted by remixnine at 7:32 PM on May 31, 2012

The soiling of old glory
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 7:53 PM on May 31, 2012