Home NewsWales NewsThe lost world of Wales is found in Detroit archivesAug 6 2009 by David Williamson, South Wales EchoAdd a commentRecommend (2)A CARDIFF dock crowded with coal ships is one of a host of pictures that can now be seen online in an archive published by the US Library of Congress.Images many in brilliant colour show life in South Wales from the 1890s to the 1910s.The picture of giant vessels moored at Cardiff is thought to date back to the 1912 coal strike when Welsh miners demanded a minimum wage.Another image from during the strike shows idle dock labourers standing around with no work.Other high-resolution images show Cardiff and Caerphilly Castles in bright colour.The Welsh photographs are part of a wider archive of historic photochrom pictures bought by the Library of Congress that are being published for their historic and artistic merit.They were created through a painstaking process where a picture would start life as a black and white negative and each new colour would be added using a different asphalt-coated lithographic stone.The colour images were originally published by the Detroit Publishing Company.Glenn Edwards, an award-winning Welsh photographer, said: At this particular time, its almost a type of National Geographic photography, where people have gone to show people what this place of Wales is like.The image-makers were fascinated by Wales castles and sweeping landscapes and much of the collection gives a romantic view of Wales.The digitised prints can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/tags/wales