In more than 60 years as an active photographer, Michael W. Lemberger took thousands of photographs. He also assembled a collection of historic photos dating from glass negatives from the 1890s to the current day.
The Lemberger Collection includes images of important figures and everyday people.
Mr. Lemberger’s family has donated The Lemberger Collection to the University of Iowa Libraries, Special Collections department, where it will be archived, catalogued, digitized, and made available to the public under a Creative Commons copyright license.
Images from The Lemberger Collection can be viewed at
Fortepan Iowa
Iowa Digital Library
“Michael Lemberger is a remarkable photographer, and has had a remarkable, and remarkably long, career documenting Iowa people and Iowa events. Few journalists have covered such a range of personalities, fires, floods, barns, buildings, flowers, animals, picnics and Papal visits; and his tens of thousands of images are carefully organized and described.”
Sid Huttner, head of special collections, University of Iowa Libraries (retired)
“The Lemberger Collection is the largest and best-documented privately-owned collection of photographs in the world.”
Loren N. Horton, Senior Curator of the Iowa State Historical Society (retired)