Top of page

Archive: December 2011 (4 Posts)

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Words About Pictures: More National Book Festival Visitor Comments

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

As the previous “Words About Pictures” blog post demonstrated, street scenes can offer considerable matter for interpretation.  Not only do they show exteriors, but they stir thoughts about interiors: what might be going on inside the buildings or the people depicted? Here’s an image that brings interior and exterior together in an interesting way and …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Winter’s Arrival

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

We mark winter’s imminent arrival with a cover illustration by Will Hammell for a January 1914 issue of Puck. In the illustration, a cluster of snow-buntings appears to gambol in the wind-blown snow, perhaps inviting the warmly bundled woman to join them in embracing the season. Also known as snowbirds or snowflakes, snow-buntings brave even …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Amundsen Arrives at South Pole

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

One hundred years ago, on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen and four members of his Norwegian expedition team arrived at the South Pole. Originally, Amundsen intended to be the first to reach the North Pole, but upon learning that Robert Peary and Frederick Cook had already achieved the feat, he made a historic change of …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

New Doors Open for the HABS/HAER/HALS Collection

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

Thanks to a recent initiative by Library of Congress and National Park Service staff, the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog has grown by nearly 400,000 records. Through a bit of technical wizardry, there is now a record for each digital image in one of our cornerstone collections: the Historic American Buildings Survey/ Historic American Engineering …