This app allows you to view and search a collection of photos of five southern cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s by the Detroit Publishing Company that are now at the Library of Congress and in the public domain. The cities included are: Charleston, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Richmond, Virginia and Savannah, Georgia. You may ask, where is Atlanta, Georgia? Well, it appears that the Detroit Publishing Company did not consider Atlanta of sufficient interest since there are only a very few photos of that city.

Tap a photo thumbnail to see a larger image accompanied by a description and a button to download the jpeg file or a larger tiff file. While viewing the image if you bring up the share charm, you will be able to share the photo via email. To view a slide show (manual, not automatic) while on the main page, simply tap the ‘Slide Show’ button. While viewing the slide show, you, again, may bring up the Share Charm to share an image via email. To search the entire collection for a word or a phrase (not a collection of words), simply bring up the Search Charm or if on the main screen tap the Search button.

The collection is a view of these cities 40 or so years following the Civil War which was so disastrous to the region. There is also a sister Windows Phone 8.1 app.

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