Collections

Collections

Photographs

Expedition Having Dinner

Historic photographs are one of the strengths of The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum collections. There are some 20,000 images, most from the eastern North American Arctic. The core of the collection are the images taken by Donald B. MacMillan between 1908, when he was a member of Peary's North Pole expedition, and 1954, his last expedition to Greenland. These include black and white images, hand-tinted glass lantern slides, and 35mm transparencies. MacMillan re-visited the same communities in Labrador, Greenland, and Baffin Island on his many expeditions, and in doing so documented their history during a period of significant cultural change. His photographs are supported by photographs taken by other members of his expeditions. Other highlights of the photograph collection include Emil Diebitsch's photographs of the 1895 Peary Relief Expedition to Greenland, and Marius E. Johnston's photographs of the 1910 Rainey-Whitney expedition to Greenland.

People interested in using photographs from our collection should contact the curator . Read about the policy and fees for using images from the collection. Please note that Robert E. Peary's photographs are not part of The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum collection. They can be found at the National Archives and the National Geopraphic Society, although the latter are not available to the public. Other institutions holding material collected by Peary and MacMillan include The American Museum of Natural History, the Library of Congress, the Field Museum and Dartmouth College.