Discover the group photo albums of École polytechnique students from 1859 to 1908

Explore and discover the group photo albums of École polytechnique students from 1859 to 1908, on the Mémoire des Hommes website.

The class of 1859 was the first to commission a photographer to produce a class album, twenty years after the invention of the daguerreotype. The first photographer to produce an album was Franck, pseudonym of François Marie Louis Gabriel Gobinet de Villecholle (1816-1906).

In these group portraits, students are generally grouped according to their study room. In contrast to the individual portrait - in full uniform - the group photograph shows the students in indoor clothes. The pose is generally relaxed, and polytechnician slang is visible, written on the clothes or on the wheels of the artillery carriages. Some classes did not have their group photographs taken, mainly in the 1860s and 1870s.

The "Mémoire des hommes" cultural portal depends on the Ministry of the Armed Forces. The archives have been digitized with funding from the Direction de la mémoire, de la culture et des archives (DMCA).