National park photos by Ansel Adams accessible online

St. Mary Lake, Ansel Adams, 1941
St. Mary Lake, Ansel Adams, 1941

Here’s a little gem I ran across this morning on the U.S. National Archives website. It seems they have a pretty good collection of photos taken by Ansel Adams back in 1941 of many of the national parks. This includes some two dozen photos of Glacier National Park. According the the site:  “In 1941 the National Park Service commissioned famed photographer Ansel Adams to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was to be nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks.” The advent of World War II killed the project, but the images are in the national archives and accessible to the public.

Further reading:

“Ansel Adams Photographs” page at the U.S. National Archives

“Discover Ansel Adams’ 226 Photos of U.S. National Parks (and Another Side of the Legendary Photographer)” via Open Culture