These are photos of protests in St. Louis for racial equality (1930) and voting rights for women (1920) from a spectacular exhibition of panoramas at the Missouri History Museum.
Incredibly, the roughly 5-by-30 foot photos are enlargments of the originals which are only about 8 by 50 inches and were also on display – yet they’re sharp enough that you can see individual hairs and the texture of the clothing fabrics. I believe they don’t make cameras any more that can obtain such high resolution except for the most sophisticated professional equipment used in science, the military or aerial photos on Google Maps.
Click on photos to enlarge
Original panoramas approx. 8 x 50 inches
Protest by the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, 1930
Panaroma at top; enlargement of the same photo below (my father on the right)
Closeups
Women’s voting rights protest, 1920
Closeups
I feel like all those famous pictures of sufragettes marching show mostly women and you forget there were also men and boys of all ages protesting alongside, or at least there were in St. Louis.
Some of the other panoramas which weren’t about protests
Pageant at Art Hill in 1914 with an audience of 100,000
The theme was something like the history of civilization; I forget exactly.
Segment of the pageant representing Native Americans or perhaps some other “primitive” group
