![Nidwald man Alois Gabriel was born on 6 November 1840. This photo was taken 100 years and 4 days after his birth.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/2020/01/GBE-146665_LM-1795742-bearb-300x174.jpg)
100 years!
There was a time before mobile phones, a time when press photographers were the eyes of an entire nation. Many of the images they captured are now forgotten. For example, the portraits of Swiss men and women who had reached the age of 100 years or more in 1940.
![In 1940, to mark the start of her 100th year, Marie Louise Pitiot from Le Locle received an armchair from the Canton of Neuchâtel, with the details of her remarkable achievement carved into the headrest.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/2020/01/100-Jaehrige-GBE-146668-289x300.jpg)
![Neuchâtel state councillor Camille Brandt congratulates Elisa Morin from Colombier on her 99th birthday.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/2020/01/100-Jaehrige-Gratulation-GBE-146673-287x300.jpg)
The press photo agency ASL
![The press photo agency ASL](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/asl-box-neu-e1619786372698-300x106.jpg)
Actualités Suisses Lausanne (ASL) was founded by Roland Schlaefli in 1954, and until its closure in 1999 was the leading press photo agency in western Switzerland. In 1973, Schlaefli also took over the archive of Agentur Presse Diffusion Lausanne (PDL), founded in 1937. The holdings of the two agencies comprise approximately six million images (negatives, prints, slides). In the broad range of subjects covered, there is a focus on federal politics, sport and western Switzerland. The agency opted not to take the step into the digital age. Since 2007, the archives of ASL and PDL have been held by the Swiss National Museum. The blog presents, in a loose chronology, images and photo sequences that particularly stood out when the collections were being recatalogued.
![Marie Bachmann from Urkheim (Canton of Aargau) celebrated her 100th birthday on 11 April 1941.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/2020/01/100-Jährige-Ofen-284x300.jpg)