Resource: Manhoff Archive

Major Martin J. Manhoff served as an assistant military attaché in the US embassy Moscow from 1952-54. During his time in the USSR, he took thousands of color slide photographs and shot over ninety minutes of 16mm color movies, including scenes of Stalin’s funeral. Several years after his death, the collection was discovered in several large cardboard boxes in his home, and after digitizing the collection, a series on Manhoff and his work was made for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2017 that generated considerable international attention (https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html).

There is now a new website that expands on that earlier work to include over 300 of the best photographs and all of the film footage, as well as detailed narratives on Manhoff, his life and career, and the context in which these images were created. The Manhoff Archive, now housed at the University of Washington Library in Seattle, is a unique visual record of life in the Soviet Union in the middle of the past century. It will be of interest to specialists in Russian/Soviet history, the Cold War, architecture, and photography. Please visit www.manhoffarchive.org