Bettmann Archive

[1] He actively expanded his collection by advertising in magazines,[1] e.g. in the Winter 1959 issue of Film Quarterly "Wanting to buy: Old movie stills - ca.

[2] In 1995, the archive was sold to Corbis, a digital stock photography company founded by Bill Gates.

[1][4] Restrictions of access to the collection arising from this sale were described in the editorial "Goodbye to All That" in the May 2001 issue of American Heritage magazine.

[5] Between late-2001 and March 2002, to preserve the photos and negatives, Corbis moved the archive from Manhattan to the Iron Mountain National Underground Storage Facility, a former limestone quarry located 220 feet (67 m) below ground in western Pennsylvania.

The archive began with Otto Bettmann's personal collection of 15,000 images which he brought with him in suitcases when he escaped from Nazi Germany.