A forgotten album of WWI Cirkut Panoramas

Have you ever seen a collection of Cirkut panoramic photos from World War I? In a bound 4-foot-wide album? I was recently contacted by Georgie Gould, President and Archivist for the Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon Historical Society, which recently received the contents of an American Legion post that was closing in Philadelphia. Among them was this large album of panoramic images made by a surveyor named Philip R. Grossman, who served with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Georgie recently contacted me to verify that they were made with a Cirkut camera.

We scheduled a zoom call and she showed me the images, which were unlike any Cirkut photographs I have seen before. From the size (about 5" tall and up to 40" wide) and the occasional tell-tale banding, it appears they were made with a No. 5 Cirkut, which, with it’s suit-case form factor, would have been ideal for capturing panoramas on the move through France as the Army Corps provided essential infrastructure, engineering, and combat support to frontline forces.

In Georgie's words, "Each is a mix of exquisite, brutal, and haunting. No death shows, but devastation and ruins, scarred landscapes and fallen walls and a bridge." There are also some surprising images of Army Corps convoys and incredible details of the vehicles and equipment they used in the field. And being attached to one unit and photographer, there's something about them that feels more intimate than the Schutz Group photos in the Library of Congress online catalog.

Georgie is willing to schedule an online presentation to share more about Philip Grossman's photos and their story.

If you're interested in the presentation, let me know in the comments which day of the week would work best for you between Mondays, Tuesday, or Thursdays. The presentation would be after 6:00 p.m. Eastern, sometime this spring or early summer.