What images are available?
The online collections contain records and digital images representing the Iowa Department of Transportation's historic photo collection. Many of the images are rare or one-of-a-kind and are part of the Iowa DOT's lantern slide collection from the early 20th century.
Other early transportation images have been collected by DOT employees, recovered from vintage postcards (now in the public domain), or donated to the department. Any copyright restrictions related to donated photographs will be noted in their description.
Over 10,000 images are currently available and additional photos and updates are being made continuously.
The collection covers vast subject areas and examines all modes of transportation from the unusual looking bicycles that started the Good Roads movement to horse-drawn urban transit systems to those marvelous automobiles.
Other featured images include: road building and maintenance equipment; Iowa Highway Commission administrators, employees and facilities; Eisenhower's trip across Iowa on the Lincoln Highway; famous Iowans synonymous with transportation history, such as Amelia Earhart and Buffalo Bill Cody; and transportation on the back roads and mainstreets of Iowa.
If you're looking for images not listed in the index or are interested in seeing more images on a certain topic, let us know. If we have such images, we'll do our best to make them available as time permits.
What is the purpose of the historic collections?
The Iowa Department of Transportation is dedicated to the preservation of our state's transportation-related photographic heritage. Our mission is to make our resources available and useful to Iowans and the American public, and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.
Understandably, the original physical archives (many are glass negatives) are extremely susceptible to damage from handling and must remain inaccessible to the public. Therefore, the primary purpose of the Web site is to provide a means of public access to the images in the form of digitized copies.
The Iowa Department of Transportation's Historic Archives Digital Collections are used regularly by educators, students, authors, historians, publishers, and media across the state, nation and globe. Its popularity is due, at least in part, to its being one of the few collections of historical transportation photos of its type in the country.
The Iowa Department of Transportation seeks to make its resources available and useful. Through this Web site, the Iowa DOT offers broad public access to a wide range of information, including historical materials and accounts that may contain offensive language and negative stereotypes, or describe/illustrate outdated policies, procedures and practices. The Iowa DOT does not endorse such views.
However, the historical backdrop sheds important light on the policies, practices, attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs prevalent at a given time. You should view materials offered on this site in the historical context in which they were created. All historical media are presented as specific, original artifacts, without further enhancement to their appearance or quality, as a record of the era in which they were produced.
The images have not been manipulated or altered in any fashion. No retouching is done to eliminate imperfections existing in the negative or the original material.
What is copyright?
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyright material.
"Copyright" is a form of protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship," both published and unpublished, that are fixed in a tangible form of expression.
Copyrightable works include literary works, computer programs, visual art works (i.e. pictorial, graphic and sculptural works), performing art works, sound recordings, serials and periodicals, and mask works.
All images, text, audio, video and other materials on this Web site (collectively, the "Content") are protected under applicable copyright, trademark and other proprietary rights. Technologies and processes embodied in and used by this site may be covered by one or more U.S. patents and patents pending.
Accordingly, the copying, downloading, displaying, posting, redistribution, use, or publication by you of any Content or any part of the site is strictly prohibited, except for use by Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) employees in the course of agency business and by other persons for private, educational, research, and non-commercial use.
What is "fair use" of copyrighted material?
"Fair Use" is a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders. The U.S. Copyright Act (Title 17, U.S. Code) gives copyright holders the exclusive right to reproduce works for a limited time period. Fair use is a limitation on this right. A use that is considered "fair" does not infringe copyright, even if it involves one of the exclusive rights of copyright holders.
Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted works. Fair use also allows consumers to make a copy of part or all of a copyrighted work, even where the copyright holder has not given permission or objects to your use of the work. In particular, fair use applies to "socially important endeavors" such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research.
Under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, four factors are used to determine whether a specific action is to be considered a "fair use." These factors are as follows:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Is the informational content associated with the images also protected by copyright?
The data associated with the images is not covered under the provisions of Fair Use. You must request permission from the copyright holder before using it. "Data" includes locations, dates, and any notes or other text about the photo that were provided when it was contributed and identified.
This means that you may not collect text information from the DOT's database in order to make text or photos available on your own Web site without permission. It is, however, permissible to use summary information to generate links such as "Click here to see all photos of Vintage Bicycles in Iowa DOT Photos."
What are robots and other download programs?
Web robots, sometimes referred to as Web Wanderers, Web Crawlers, Gatherers or Spiders, are programs that visit a Web site for the purpose of culling E-mail addresses or downloading portions of or an entire Web site.
Some robots serve a valuable purpose, like those created by the major search engines that send their robots to a site to index your pages and include the pages in their databases. Other robots violate copyright laws, assist people in spamming, invade privacy, and consume enormous amounts of bandwidth. Robots that use multiple connections to read data overwhelm Web servers, forcing them to respond to robot requests to the detriment of human site visitors.
Therefore, the Iowa DOT does not permit robots (not associated with major search engines) to harvest images and data from our Web site.
What does "circa" mean?
"Circa" means "approximately," used to show an approximate date. Circa 1910 = approximately 1910. The term is used when a specific date isn't known.
How did the Iowa DOT's photo collection get started and who were the photographers?
On April 13, 1904, Iowa Governor A.B. Cummins signed into law the legislative act declaring that "Iowa State College at Ames, shall act as a highway commission." The highway commission during this early period consisted of three full-time and two part-time employees who received their salaries from Iowa State College.
On April 9, 1913, an act was signed separating the Iowa Highway Commission from Iowa State College. The Iowa State Highway Commission ended its 62-year existence in 1975 with the creation of the Iowa Department of Transportation.
Unfortunately, the DOT no longer has an official record documenting who took the photos in the teens and 1920's. It is assumed that J.W. Eichinger, editor of the Service Bulletin, took the photos for that publication and the rest of the Highway Commission. Lander Studio of Boone, Iowa, took pictures during the 1930's and 1940's.
The department's photographers, starting in the 1950's and continuing through today, include:
- Olav Smedal was first employed by the Iowa State Highway Commission in June 1954 for Traffic and Safety. He transferred to Information Section in June 1957 and was appointed director of the Office of Information December 1957. He retired May 29, 1970.
- Len Shulke was hired on Sept. 1, 1974; he resigned from his position July 12, 1984.
- Bill Burns was hired Sept. 8, 1964 and retired Dec. 30, 1999.
- J. Cory Heintz was employed in May 2000 and resigned in August 2007.
- Keven Arrowsmith became the DOT's photographer in October 2007 and continues to serve today .
How is the information cataloged?
Most of the cataloging is considered "minimal level," because information is often limited to what is provided with the photo rather than what could be learned by fully researching the image. Since the original information accompanying a photo can be inaccurate, the DOT is always glad to hear from researchers who have additional or better information.