Bettmann Archive

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Charlemagne and Pope Hadrian I. Image from the Bettmann Archive.

The Bettmann Archive is a collection of 11 million photographs and images, some going back to the United States Civil War and including some of the best known U.S. historic images. The Archive also includes many images from Europe and elsewhere.

It was founded in 1936 by Otto Bettmann (1903-1998), a German curator who emigrated to the United States in 1935. In 1960, Bettmann moved it from his apartment in New York City to the Tischman building on West 57th Street, New York City. In 1981, Bettmann sold the archive to the Kraus Thomson Organization. In 1995, the archive was sold to Corbis, a digital stock photography company founded by Bill Gates.

In 2002, to preserve the photos and negatives, Corbis moved the archive from Manhattan to the Iron Mountain National Underground Storage Facility, a former limestone quarry located 220 feet below ground in western Pennsylvania. The temperature of the storage room has been gradually lowered to -4°F, which was determined to be the optimal temperature for the long-term storage of the archive. Meanwhile, Corbis has been scanning the negatives into digital form.

The archive began with Otto Bettmann's personal collection of 15,000 images. Over the years, it acquired other collections including: the Gendreau Collection of Americana in 1967; the Underwood & Underwood Collection of material from late 19th century to World War I in 1971; and the United Press International collection in 1984.