ABSTRACT
Still pictures have been used to document life since the middle of the nineteenth century. Fortunately, many of these photographs are still available to the historian. One example is the Civil War photographs of Matthew Brady, which are viewed as so significant that a print made directly from one of his negatives is considered to be quite valuable. The development of the motion picture, at the end of the nineteenth century, increased our ability to understand and interpret events. This was enhanced further by the invention of videotape in the 1950s. Now, in the early portion of the twenty-first century, we are experiencing the rapid shift to digital media, including the transfer of many historical pictures to that form.
