Picture a Day: The People of Damascus Revolt -- in 1895. Pardon the Diversion, But People Are Dying Again in Syria

Sunday, November 20, 2011

The People of Damascus Revolt -- in 1895.
Pardon the Diversion, But People Are Dying Again in Syria

Revolt in prison, Damascus, circa 1895. Crowd of people
outside of prison.

In light of events taking place in Syria today, we depart from our normal presentation and publish an 1895 photo of a prison revolt in Damascus, Syria found in a Library of Congress collection we usually don't cite: the George Grantheim Bain collection.

We encourage experts on Syrian history to provide details on the events portrayed here.

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Published by Lenny Ben-David

About the title photograph of Jerusalem

The photograph, from the Library of Congress collection, was taken between 1860 and 1880 by Frank M. Good, according to the Library. But we can narrow down the dates a little further. The photo shows the Churva Synagogue dome on the left horizon between the two mosques' domes. The Churva was finished in 1864.

Most of the Library of Congress pictures are from photographers from the "American Colony" in Jerusalem, a group of Christian utopians -- often eccentric -- who lived in Jerusalem between 1881 and the 1940s. They returned to the U.S. and bequeathed their massive collection to the Library of Congress in 1978. The photos were digitalized in recent years.

A history of the American Colony Photography Department can be found in Jerusalem's American Colony and Its Photographic Legacy by Tom Powers and in an Institute for Palestine Studies article, Western Consumption and "Insider" Commercial Photography. Unfortunately, the latter article pays little attention to the photographs of Jews and Jewish sites.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Click on the captions to see the originals.

According to the Library of Congress, "there are no known restrictions on publication" of their photographs.