Images from the
Free Library of Philadelphia
Print and Picture Collection
Castner Scrapbooks

This collection includes more than 40 scrapbooks of engravings, photographs, watercolors, newspaper clippings, maps and other material collected by Samuel Castner and donated to the Free Library. I spent part of a summer several years ago systematically examining the scrapbooks and photographing items of interest. Perhaps the most astounding thing to me is how Mr. Castner took items that I would handle with utmost care--early photographs, engravings, maps, original artwork--and pasted them down in his scrapbook. Fortunately, the paste he used has not adversely affected most of the images.

Thanks to Karen Lightner, head of the collection, for permission to use these images here. Please contact her at (215) 686-5405 for permission to reuse these images in any form.

I have divided the images by subject, the links to which are as follows:

Delaware River: General Scenes

Delaware River: Smith and Windmill Island

Augustus Kollner: Watercolors and Lithographs

Frank Taylor: Watercolors of West Philadelphia

The image file names refer to the Collections volume and page number. For example, Cas20_10 would be found in Scrapbook volume 20, on page 10.

Please let me know if you would like to see more of this collection on Philly H2O.

This page last modified March 8, 2006