For 17 years, from 1924 to 1941, pilot J. Victor Dallin, a former member of the Royal Air Force and veteran of the First World War, owned and operated the Dallin Aerial Survey Company. Based at the small Philadelphia Municipal Airport (near where the International Airport stands today), his company took thousands of aerial photographs throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, most in the Delaware Valley, and a great many across the Upper Main Line. Whether photographing towns, estates, industries or farms, the results of their work were amazing.

Using open airplanes and specially-designed aerial cameras with 8x10 inch glass plate negatives, the clarity of these images were useful and sought after at the time they were taken. These images today are simply invaluable in better understanding the details of our area from a simpler age. 

The Society has licensed a collection of over 60 of these images in a high-resolution format from the Pictorial Collections Department of the Hagley Library in Wilmington, Delaware.