Burgert Brothers Photos

 

There are three ways given below to view the approximately 14,000 Burgert Brothers collection of Tampa photos.  Below that are some comments about the collection.

View the searchable collection inside a browser. It may take a few moments to load. This page is probbly too intense to be viewed on a phone or even a tablet and should be used only on a desktop computer or laptop. Several shortend lists for a phone or tablet are provided. Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection

Search or Browse the collection with the aid of thumbnails of the images. Here you can use a text search to help locate images of interest.

Unfortunately Internet Explorer is currently the only browser that still supporst Silverelight. So, using Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Firefox, for example, will not allow the display of this method. My favorite method (not available on devices without Silverlight installed such as phones) employing what is called a Microsoft Pivot Collection. Once you have used this, I don't think you will want to user any other. If your browser doesn't already have the free Microsoft Silverlight plug-in , you will be prompted to install it. This collection does not contain the Cirkut panoramic images. You may do a keyword search and order my date.  Additionally the 431 Cirkut (panoramic) images may be viewed here.

The Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System has done yeoman service in digitizing many of the photographs taken by Burgert Brothers from the 1890's into the 1960's in Tampa, Florida and the surrounding area.  They make note of this collection at http://digitalcollections.hcplc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15391coll1, give information about the collection, tell you how to search the collection and how to order prints.

Originally this was a Telnet link for those of us accessing the catalog via the Internet, and it gave you a glimpse of what the Internet was like before the World Wide Web (Of course, they now have a modern web based search). Since I love old photographs, I wanted a better way to browse an index of these files, where, with the click of my mouse, I could then view the photograph.  I put my programming skills to work, and the methods above demonstrate the results.

There are now 14,234 photos in the index as of May 21, 2009. There were 13,222 photos in the index as of January, 2005,  8,578 photos in the index as of July 1, 2002, and when I first compiled this listing in December, 1999, there were 4,458.

As in any large database, there are errors. As you browse the collection, you most probably will find a very small number of  instances where a file is listed, but no picture is produced when you click on it.  In another type of error the picture does not match the Title. Considering the size of the database, such problems are understandable.

I welcome comments and ideas at William LaMartin .  Have fun.