Photos

• Number: 225.192 photos, 170.498 negatives and slides, 499 albums (as of 1.1.2003)
• Format: Photos, halftone photos, slides, negatives, photo albums
• Access: Ca. 102.000 photos are accessible through search.iisg.nl. Search for 'photo' plus artist, organisation, person, or subject.
  The other photos can be searched on the website by collection (lists of photo collections).
• Consultation: In general original photos are not available for exhibitions. Original photos can be consulted in the reading room by previous arrangement.
• Reproductions: High resolution scans can be ordered - see rates.

Some important collections

Photos date mainly from the second half of the 19th century until today. They vary greatly in subject and country of origin:

The Netherlands

Political parties and organisations:
Socialist (RSP, RSAP, PSP), anarchist (Provo, Kabouter), social-democratic (SDAP, PvdA, AJC) and communist (CPH/CPN) organisations.
Portraits and biographical material of leaders, such as Domela Nieuwenhuis, Troelstra, Vorrink, Den Uyl.

Unions, labour:
Many neutral, Roman Catholic and Protestant unions are represented.
Strikes, campaigns, and demonstrations on employment, shut downs (Ford, Demka, ADM, NDSM); working conditions; terms of employment; labour and the production process in different branches of industry; women's labour; children's labour.

Various campaigns, subjects:
Campaigns and demonstrations on housing and squatter's movement (from coll. Staatsarchief); women's movement; racism, discrimination, and migrants (Historical Image Archive on Migrants); education and universities; temperance; peace movement and anti-militarism; campaigns on health care; environment; traffic and other similar subjects.
Campaigns on international solidarity (Southern Africa, Vietnam).

Photographers, press collections:
Many photos from the following photographers and photo press agencies: Paul Babeliowsky, Wim Dussel, Kors van Bennekom (CPN), Cor Jaring (Provo), Dolf Kruger (CPN), José Melo, Michel Pellanders (labour, shut-down of Ford), Fernando Pereira, Han Singels, Ton Sonneveldt (PvdA), Eva Strausz, Polygoon, Vereenigde Fotobureaux, Vogt & Peets, Hannes Wallrafen, Koen Wessing, Algemeen Hollands Fotopersbureau/Ben van Meerendonk (ca. 75.000 negatives), archive Joh. de Haas (trade unions 1945-1980, labour, ca. 60.000 negatives).
Main press photo archives: De Nieuwe Linie, De Rode Tribune, Het Vrije Volk (ca. 70.000 photos), De Waarheid (ca. 42.500 photos).

Other countries

General:
European 19th and early 20th century anarchist and socialist movements; European social democracy in the interwar (many photos from pre-1933 Germany from SPD archive).
Trade unions, communes, colonies, model factories and cooperatives in West-Europe and the USA (from collection Prudhommeaux); campaigns and demonstrations on working conditions; terms of employment; labour and the production process in different branches of industry; women's labour; children's labour; peace movement; third-world movement and revolutions. Portraits and biographical material of socialist, anarchist, social-democratic and communist leaders, such as Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and others.

By country:
Bolivia: collection Werkgroep Bolivia.
China: collection People's Movement, Spring 1989.
Czechoslovakia: Deutsche SDAP Westböhmens before 1933, 'velvet revolution' 1989.
England: women's movement first quarter of the 20th century, such as National Women's Social and Political Union, East London Federation of Suffragettes.
France: the Paris Commune 1870, portraits of Communards by E. Appert, Neo-Malthusianism (archive Humbert), demonstrations Rassemblement Universel de la Paix in the 1930s.
Indonesia: collection Djambatan.
Poland: Solidarnosc.
Portugal: revolution 1974-1975, agrarian reforms.
Spain: civil war 1936-1938, very extensive photo archive of the CNT.
Turkey: TKP etc.
USSR: official parades, building up of industry and the collectivisation of the agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s, labour schools ca. 1921, Partija Socialistov-Revoljucionerov, Zionistische Sozialistische Partei, exiles before 1917.

International organisations:
Internationals: Second International, congresses, and meetings, including London 1896, Paris 1900, Amsterdam 1904, Stuttgart 1907. Labour and Socialist International, Socialist International. Third and Fourth International.
Trade union movement: International Federation of (Free) Trade Unions, PTTI; International Union of Students, IMF.
Peace movement: including War Resisters International, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Environment movement: Greenpeace photoarchive.

See also

- A Socialist in the Dutch East Indies. Photos by Van Kol
- Afghan Migrant Labourers in Iran. Photo Collection
- AHF / Ben van Meerendonk
- Photo collection De Brug-Djambatan

Publications

- Herman Selier, Vroeger, toen alles nog leuk was... (Amsterdam 1994)
- Frank de Jong, Marina de Vries, Algemeen Hollands. Ben van Meerendonk en zijn fotopersbureau (Amsterdam, 2005)