Archives & History

Archival Photographs are available to download and use in your Powerpoint presentations. You may also order prints in any size. We have a wide variety of old and new photographs of the MGH and offer many choices of frames and mattes.

Medicine and photography joined hands at the MGH more than 125 years ago. Pictures then were known as daguerrotypes. They were light-sensitive, silver-coated metallic plates which picked up images and were developed in mercury vapor.

In the late 1880’s, the MGH Photography Department had its beginnings when funds were appropriated to purchase photographic equipment. At that time, the responsibility for overseeing all hospital photographic needs was entrusted to the pharmacist. It was not until 1927 that the MGH trustees authorized the establishment of an official photographic laboratory at the hospital.

Today the MGH Photography Department is a full service lab capable of providing traditional photographic services as well as the latest in digital technology.