This collection is made up of photographs depicting various people and places in Bethlehem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the images were produced by the photographic service of the American Colony in Jerusalem. In this period Bethlehem was intensely photographed by photography companies catering to western ideas of the biblical Bethlehem.
The original photographs, along with the digital versions displayed here, are held in the Matson Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
