Once upon a time, before there were pixels...

In my spare time I maintain a website dedicated to the artwork of my great-grandfather, E.J. Meeker. He was an illustrator for the major newspapers and periodicals in the late 1800's. That was before they could easily reproduce photos in the newspapers. I collect his work by scouring eBay for old issues of Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustration Newspaper, and Century Magazine. Then I scan in his artwork, and add some of the text from the article to the webpage. Right now I have quite a backlog of articles to post, but you can view some of them at www.ejmeeker.org. I also take some of the more compelling (or weird) articles and turn them into YouTube videos. His watercolors of Cuba at the turn of the last century seem to be particularly popular on YouTube.

Here's a view of the "financial center of the world" (Wall Street) in 1902. I wonder how much longer that title will apply?