The head of the Sphinx, Egypt. (Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection/Library of Congress)

In an age before commercial air travel, Frank Carpenter and his daughter Frances traversed the globe several times, taking thousands of photographs. These photos encapsulate not only varying styles of photography, but also a moment in history when people were still finding new places to explore.

The collection, donated to the Library of Congress by Frances Carpenter, is an incredible selection of pictures from an exciting time in modern history. For instance, there are many images of Alaska from before it became a state.

The photographs were taken between 1880 and 1934, with the majority of them dating from between 1910 to 1925. Most were taken by Frank and Frances, but the collection also includes some images from commercial agencies.

In his lifetime, Frank was able to travel around the world three times, often paying for his trips by writing newspaper stories along the way.

He booked letter writing tours with newspaper syndicates and Cosmopolitan Magazine, which was enough to pay for a trek around the world in 1888-1889. By writing a letter each week to twelve periodicals, he was able to log a 25,000 mile journey through South America in 1898, then later other tours in Central America, South America, and Europe.

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Frank G. Carpenter was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1855. He became a journalist, photographer, author of geography books, and a world traveler.

He began his journalism career after graduating from the University of Wooster, Ohio in 1877. He was hired as a correspondent for the Cleveland Leader newspaper in Columbus Ohio.

Carpenter wrote in his book, Carpenter's Geographical Reader: North America, "What would you think of a farmer who did not know his own farm, or what he had on it?" He approached the world with this mindset, striving to explore as much of it as possible. Most of his life was spent traveling to foreign countries and he died during his third world trip at the age of 69 in Nanking, China in 1924.

The entire collection donated to the Library of Congress includes 5,400 photographic prints that were bound in albums and 10,400 prints that were never bound, as well as 7,000 glass and film negatives. For more information of the Carpenter Collection, you can check out the Library of Congress website.

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