Black and white negative of people gathering together at the city of Agra. Hoefler's original description: "British India. Agra is quite a modern city, with two excellent hotels. It has been the mecca for many years of tourists from the world around, for it is the ambition of every lover of beauty to gaze upon the Taj Mahal. In most cities in India the source of water is an open pool or lake, but here there is modern piping, and scene shows natives of Agra gathered at one of the numerous town pumps.
Donor:
Jacqueline Hoefler Troyer, Paul L. Hoefler, and Sharon Cordary
Collection place:
Agra District, Uttar Pradesh, India
Verbatim coll. place:
Agra, British India
Maker or artist:
Paul L. Hoefler
Collector:
Paul L. Hoefler
Collection date:
1930s
Materials:
Cellulose nitrate film
Place depicted:
Jaipur district, Rajasthan, India
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Black-and-white negatives
Function:
7.0 Use not specified (Communication, Records, Currency, and Measures)
Production date:
1930s
Accession date:
August 8, 1985
Context of use:
In this negative, people are filling up vases with water from a pump. As mentioned on the catalog card, Agra was unlike most Indian cities at this time as it had modern piping. Despite a relatively advanced piping system, Agra today is in the midst of a water crisis, the city owing its water-related woes to a lack of treatment, pollution, and climate change as the Yamuna River’s level drops.