This box of 52 rare and fascinating magic lantern slides were taken at the Panama Canal Zone during construction work of the Canal at the turn of the 20th Century. As the largest Engineering feat of its time the canal took over 30 years to complete and countless lives lost. These photos record the time when the Americans took over the construction from 1904 (until 1907) and record a mix of work, pleasure and everyday life for the workers and their families who did the actual digging. It shows the houses, prison, Baptist Church, social groups, high street, work parties, machinery, hospital wagon, land slips and even the official Presidential visit by Teddy Roosevelt.
An enclosed letter is dated 1907 from the Canal Zone Administration in response to a priest’s request for images as well as a list of the ones he chose. This was obviously his box and interestingly the Priest ran the church at Culbera Cut in the Panama Zone (one of the largest man-made valleys in the Canal and one of the world’s triumphs of engineering at the time for its scale). Since these historic images were not in public circulation and were only really for the Administration’s own use, very few copies would have been made at the time.
There are 52 slides in this box but the ones without a frame (mostly depicting buildings) are single pane copies of some of the others. There are half a dozen with chips to the corners but thankfully none encroach into the actual image.
