AGSL Digital Photo Archive presents a selection of images from the extensive photographic holdings of the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library. The images were selected from several collections including the American Geographical Society Library Print Collection, the Harrison Forman Collection, the Robert W. McColl Collection, the Bert Krawczyk Collection, the Edna Schaus Sorensen and Clarence W. Sorensen Collection, and the Helmut de Terra Collection.

The American Geographical Society Library Print Collection represents many decades of research and acquisition. The scope of the collection is worldwide. Dating from the mid nineteenth century to the present, these photographs document a wealth of geographic themes. Many of the photographs were originally donated to the American Geographical Society to illustrate its publications, such as the Bulletin and Geographical Review. The images selected for this project include historical photos of Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Korea, Thailand, Nepal, and China.

Clarence Woodrow Sorensen was an explorer, editor, and CBS staff foreign correspondent who traveled extensively capturing images of the life, work, and historical events of cultures worldwide. During Sorenson's extensive travels, Eugene V. Harris, a professional photographer, accompanied him and took many of 64,000 slides that make up the collection. The slides selected for this project include photos of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey that Sorensen and Harris took in the 1950s and 1960s.