Historic photograph project preserves Dundee memories for generations to come
Almost 40,000 photographs of Dundee, cataloguing the city's changing image from the 1950s through to the 1990s, have been preserved for future generations.
The council says the full archive will be made available to the public soon.
- By Alan Wilson
- Published in the Courier : 17.11.11
- Published online : 19.11.11 @ 01.21pm
The project to safeguard and document the photos, entitled A City in Transition: A Photographic Record of the Second Half of the 20th Century, has just been completed and the results handed over to Lord Provost John Letford at the city chambers on Wednesday.
Teams of volunteers, coordinated by Dundee Civic Trust in conjunction with the Tayside Family History Society, spent hours putting the thousands of negatives and transparencies on a database.
The unique photographic record is of a period during which the city underwent some of the most radical changes in its history, and contains a wide variety of images, including architectural recording, street scenes and events.
The locations of many of the buildings pictured were unknown, and many of the buildings photographed have since been demolished, yet, project officials say, they constitute an important and irreplaceable record of Dundee during the second half of the 20th century.
Some of them are the last known images of particular areas prior to their demolition, and in some cases they are the only known images.
Jack Searle of Dundee Civic Trust handed over the photos to the lord provost, while the original film stock was passed to the city archives for long-term storage.
Mr Searle said: ''It's been a long project — a record we've curated which future generations will find both interesting and useful.
''It was an enormous task. There are almost 40,000 images and it was a unique resource of negatives and slides that needed dealing with.
''Most of the images came from the city council, many were planning pictures which were surplus to requirements, but we felt it was a historic record that required documenting.''
Dundee Civic Trust and Tay Valley Family History Society were determined to ensure the unique collection was made accessible to future generations and put together a project costing some £20,000, with assistance from the National Lottery Fund.
They then put together teams of volunteers to digitise and identify some 8,923 black-and-white negatives, 28,336 colour negatives and 17,245 colour transparencies dating from the period 1950 to 1990.
Copies of the database hard disc drives were presented to the lord provost for handing over to the city archivist and the local history section of Dundee Central Library, which has agreed to make the database available to the public in the near future.
In the meantime, you can browse old photos of Dundee at the Dundee Photopolis site.
09.21am - 21.11.2011 jen - Dundee, Scotland Report This
brilliant.. great to see these!
02.12pm - 21.11.2011 mark - Dundee, scotland Report This
im looking forward to these archives being available, the town looks so much better back in those days.
03.25am - 22.11.2011 mick - Auckland, New Zealand Report This
Fantastic! there will be a few laughs had when browsing the through the archives.
11.34am - 23.11.2011 Stewart - Dundee, UK Report This
Great to see these archives being made available to the public! However, i do think Dundee looks much better nowadays. There is so much going on in the city, its great and really exciting to be a part of at the moment. In the next few years things will get even better. Well done Dundee
04.17pm - 23.11.2011 mark - dundee, scotland Report This
looks better now? should have gone to specsavers. look at all the great architecture pulled down over the last 40 yrs - overgate has gone, all the city gates/arches gone, dundee east & west train station gone, wellgate gone just to name a few replaced with faceless modern boxes, sorry buildings.
11.30am - 25.11.2011 Stewart - Dundee, Uk Report This
Overgate - a mix of slum houses and small shops, There are onlytwo city gates left in Scotland! One is in Dundee, look at all the exciting new developments springing up - City Quay area, new hotels, luxery flats in all areas of the city, cultural quarter etc. Dundee is a city very much on the up.
09.00pm - 25.11.2011 T. Butchers - Dundee, uk Report This
Cultural Quarter. LOL..that always makes me laugh. Bordered by a giant casino, a huge bingo hall and a massive pub masquerading as an arts centre! Certainly unique, in that it must be one of the few arts facilities of its type with bouncers.
10.25pm - 25.11.2011 DOROTHY OLEARY(KENNEDY) - VICTORIA B.C., CANADA Report This
I LIVED IN THORTER ROW.I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING PHOTOS OF THE OLD AREA
11.52am - 26.11.2011 Stewart - Dundee, UK Report This
Cultural Quarter- an arts cinema, a modern art gallery, boutique shops, trendy bars, grade A office space, a university, a nationally renowned theatre, the list goes on! Dundonians really need to stop downtalking their city and realise how lucky they are to live in such an exciting and vibrant place
01.06pm - 28.11.2011 mark - dundee, scotland Report This
stewart you can try and talk it up any way you want but im afraid its more a case of the emperors new clothes...
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