American Historical Ephemera and Photography

Various sizes and formats, most 8 x 10 in. gelatin silver prints, all housed in 9 binders. Provenance: Swann Auction Galleries, 19 April 2018, Sale 2474, Lot 285.

This extraordinary visual record documents the many incredible firsts of NASA's manned missions, including John Glenn's first orbit around the earth, Ed White's first spacewalk, Neil Armstrong's triumphant first step upon the surface of the moon, and the rescue of the crew of Apollo 13. These wire photographs were originally slated for destruction, as it was common practice for surplus photographs provided to wire services to be destroyed; they were instead rescued by an employee of one of these wire services, who used them to create a fantastic visual record of one of the most adventurous periods in human history.