Finding Aids

The Dallin Aerial Surveys Company produced aerial photographs for newspapers, businesses, municipalities, and private individuals. The company was founded in 1924 by Colonel J. (John) Victor Dallin (1897-1991), a Royal Flying Corps-trained pilot who served in World War One. During WWI he became involved in aerial photography on a reconnaissance mission during the latter stages of the war. This collection consists of over 13,000 aerial photographs primarily of the Mid-Atlantic region taken between 1925 and 1941. The company made vertical and oblique aerial photographs of factories, private estates, schools, country clubs, towns, airports, rivers, and many other sites and some news events of the day. The subject with the largest number of views is the city of Philadelphia.

This collection consists of glass plate negatives showing scenes from Carbon County, Pennsylvania during the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as a selection of archival prints. The majority of the images show scenes from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and the surrounding area, the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, and the waterfalls at Glen Onoko.