The Ryerson Image Center is the recipient of an archive of nearly 13,000 photographs and negatives by the acclaimed 20th century photographer Berenice Abbott.

The archive, a donation from a group of anonymous donors, represents the largest and most comprehensive collection of Abbott’s work in the world.

Abbott, who died in 1991, was best known for her project "Changing New York," in which she doggedly documented the transition of New York City during the Great Depression and the years leading up to the war. Her project, financed by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Federal Art Project, has become perhaps the definitive document of the city’s transition to modernity.