Preserving the global Armenian experience through photography
Project Save is dedicated to saving the photographic heritage of the worldwide Armenian community by making our repository of original photographs, from as early as 1860, accessible for research, publications and presentations.
Feel free to email us at archives@projectsave.org if you don’t find something on your research topic.
Dates: 1900-1920
After the Genocide, foreign missionaries worked as doctors, nurses, educators, and engineers supporting Near East Relief, a humanitarian organization founded in response to the Genocide. Missionaries served in schools, hospitals, and orphanages.
Dates: 1910-1981
The images in this collection depict events, banquets, and conventions of various organizations and churches, primarily Armenian ones. The photos are part of Digital Commonwealth, managed by the Boston Public Library, which provides public access to materials through a consortium of archives, libraries, museums, and historical societies across Massachusetts.
Dates: Ottoman Empire
Original glass plate negatives of the family photographs of Karekin Encababian, of the Encababian Frères Photography Studio. The Encababians were an Armenian family of photographers from Sivas (present-day Turkey). The negatives give insight into the family’s story, the photographic process, and the photographer’s mastery.
An audio recording of an interview with Karekin Encababian’s children (1988) has been digitized and transcribed.
Dates: 1910s to 1950s
The collection captures notable locations and events in Constantinople (now Istanbul) before the Algen family’s move to New York City in 1920. Algen photographed buildings, monuments, street scenes, rural areas outside the city, nearby islands, and more intimate photographs of his family and friends. He also photographed battleships on the Bosporus strait during the Occupation of Constantinople around 1918 or 1919 and the visit of Emperor Charles I and Empress Zita to Constantinople in 1918.
After the family’s move to New York City, he photographed his new home avidly: capturing street scenes, family events, vacations, outings, and picnics. He also documented activities in his music studio on Riverside Drive and invited musicians, friends, and family to sit for portraits. The entire collection comprises over 800 original glass plate and sheet film negatives.
The collection consists of 1361 silver gelatin photographs (744 of which are available online) from the collection of the late Jack Torosian, a collector based in New York City, originally from Smyrna. The photographs show life in Soviet Armenia from 1923 to 1973, with the bulk from 1923 to 1973.
The photographs cover many aspects of life in Armenia during the Soviet era: factory work life, construction of factory buildings, workers’ housing, education, the Young Pioneers (Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization), repatriates arriving from abroad and at work, and portraits of notable figures of the time in politics, military, and the arts and sciences.
Original vintage albumen prints documenting the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, mostly Constantinople, c. 1870s to 1900s. The photographs depict typical Orientalist subject matter such as architectural ruins like the Aqueduct of Valens, Walls of Constantinople, and ethnographic types. Photographs also include views of the Bosporus, Topkapı Palace, and views of Brusa, among others. Many of the photographs are from the studio of Armenian photographers Pascal Sebah (and the later studio iteration Sebah and Joaillier), the Abdullah Frères and Gülmez Frères. Other photographs include Basile Kargopoulo (Greek), Guillaume Berggren (Swedish), and Félix Bonfils (French).
Album of photographs, Peoples of the Ottoman Empire 92 carte de visite albumen silver print photographs in an album. The photographs are by Abdullah Frères, Pascal Sebah, C. D. Philippides, Conrad (Russian), and some are by unknown photographers. The album belonged to Kate P. Williams of Mardin, Turkey, 1871. Album is comprised of ethno-photography studio portraits showing peoples of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century: Arabs, Albanians, Armenians, Circassians, Egyptians, Greek, Gypsies [Roma], Kurds, Moslems [sic], Persians, Syrians, Turks, etc. as well as different social classes: beggars, water carriers, Maronites, priests, cameleers and more. Most photographs are 4 1/4 x 2 1/2″ in size. Portraits of historical figures include: Sultan Abdulaziz Sultan Mohammed Murad V Huseyin Avni Pasha Omar Pasha Latas Mehmed Emin Aali Pasha Tewodros II.
Photo collection of 5 generations of Renjilians/Giragossians, from Hagop Giragossian in Tarsus and the Renjilians of Bitias to their descendants. The bulk of the collection is comprised of photographs documenting the work of Rev. Mihran Renjilian, who worked at an Armenian refugee settlement in Kokkinia, Athens, Greece in the 1920-until World War II. The 231 photographs were donated by the great granddaughter of Rev. Mihran Renjilian, Jenna Lynn Cody.
The collection is divided into three Series.
Series I Family photographs of the Renjilian family of Bitias/ Musa Dagh/ Antioch, and the Giragossian family of Tarsus, 1890-1924
Series II Rev. Mihran Renjilian and family in Kokkinia, Athens, Greece, 1924-1939
Series III Renjilian family after WWII, immigration to the United States, and comtemporary photographs of the descendants of Mihran Renjilian
George Paragamian served in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945, as a US Army Air Force photographer with the 9th Army Bomb Squads during World War II. He photographed the Allied storming of Europe at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944- D Day, capturing the invasion from 3,000 feet. He captured the moment that the plane’s bombs hit their targets all over Europe for damage assessment. He received a Distinguished Air Medal for his participation in the Normandy landings in 1944. He also captured Bob Hope socializing with the troops and lots of group pictures of air crews posing in front of their airplanes. His photographs also capture the heavy destruction the bombs created over Western Europe, as well as haunting photographs of the liberation of Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp (viewer discretion is advised). Even before General Eisenhower entreated Occupation troops to document the camps with as many photographs as possible, George Paragamian’s camera recorded what he saw.
From 1978 to 2022, Project Save founder Ruth Thomasian recorded an extensive collection of Oral Histories. Thomasian traveled the United States gathering the testimonies of +700 photo donors and their direct family members, many of whom were Armenian Genocide survivors. These touching interviews provide crucial information about the donors’ photographs, like specific dates, locations, subjects’ names, and other contextual information.
Project Save is actively working on digitizing and transcribing these interviews so they are accessible to the public.
Selection of photographs from various geographic areas. Hover over each photograph and click it to see more.
Selection of photographs of topics frequently searched for. Hover over each photograph and click it to see more.