In this beautiful image of cherry blossoms in full bloom, a portion of the Tidal Basin with the Inlet Bridge was captured on a lantern slide. It was hand colored to bring the spectacle of springtime in Washington, D.C., to your home in the form of a matted print. The scene was captured around 1933 - 1936.

Different photographic formats present different preservation challenges; perhaps none more so than glass holdings. The Still Picture Branch has never calculated an exact count of its glass holdings, which include glass plate negatives, lantern slides, and a small number of ambrotypes, but the current estimate is over 500,000 items. This includes black-and-white and hand-colored images dating from the late 1850s through the 1950s. To minimize the handling of these fragile items while increasing access to them at the same time, the Still Picture Branch continues to digitize many series of glass negatives and lantern slides and make them available in the National Archives Catalog.