Album of Original Photographs Showing the Installation of Street Lights in Hamilton, Ohio, 1931

Album containing eleven 7"x 9" professional linen-backed photographs showing the process and results of installing new street lights along a main commercial thoroughfare in Hamilton, Ohio. Hamilton is the county seat of Butler County, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati. In the early twentieth century, "the town was a heavy manufacturing center for vaults and safes, machine tools, cans for vegetables, paper, paper making machinery, locomotives, frogs and switches for railroads, steam engines, diesel engines, foundry products, printing presses, and automobile parts" (wiki). The photos show wide streets lined with businesses which, with the advent of increased (truncated) automobile traffic, were undoubtedly eager for the most modern and effective methods of illumination. A wonderful set of facing night views shows how much brighter the new lights are. An additional 16 snapshots photos are laid into the album, most showing people posing with what appear to be temporary streetlights. Five were taken in front of the office of the Electric Railway Equipment Co. of Cincinnati, which may have supplied some of the equipment used to install the new lights. (Inventory #: 20798)