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Archive: 2017 (52 Posts)

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

Camera and Locomotive: Two Tracks across the Continent: Andrew J. Russell’s Eye for the Land

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is the third in a series of guest posts by Micah Messenheimer, Assistant Curator of Photography, Prints and Photographs Division, that discuss the parallel development of two technologies in the 19th century: railroads and photography. The catalysts for a transcontinental railroad lie in the increasing industrialization of the country and the rapid expansion …

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

“Drawn to Purpose” Exhibition: What Viewers Are Saying

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. The recently opened exhibition “Drawn to Purpose” features more than 30 works by North American women illustrators and cartoonists, spans the late 1800s to the present and includes Golden Age illustration, early comics, magazine …

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

International Tea Day

Posted by: Lara Szypszak

Settle in for a good strong cuppa because December 15 is International Tea Day! Tea drinking began thousands of years ago in China and made its way west to Europe through Dutch trade in the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the East India Company had a monopoly on the tea trade between China and …

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

Posters of the Winter Season

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

The following is a guest post by Jan Grenci, Reference Specialist for Posters, Prints and Photographs Division. Winter is one of my favorite seasons, what with the snow, and the cookies, and the caroling. There are a number of posters in the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division that illustrate some of the things …

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

Double Take: Mirror Images

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

I did more than a double take when I saw the photograph below while searching in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog – I did a triple and maybe even a quadruple take! Once I convinced my brain of what I was seeing, I knew mirror images would be the theme of this installment of …

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

Behind the Scenes: a Cataloger Unravels a Surprise

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following is an interview with Woody Woodis, Senior Cataloger in the Prints and Photographs Division, about discovering and cataloging a woven “print” memorializing Joseph-Marie Jacquard, inventor of the programmable Jacquard loom. Melissa: What can you tell us about this woven “print” depicting inventor-weaver Joseph-Marie Jacquard? Woody: During his lifetime Jacquard developed a loom attachment …

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

Camera and Locomotive: Two Tracks Across the Continent – Solomon Nunes Carvalho, Expedition Photographer

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is the second in a series of guest posts by Micah Messenheimer, Assistant Curator of Photography, Prints and Photographs Division that discuss the parallel development of two technologies in the 19th century: railroads and photography. Picking up the story after John Plumbe’s successes as a daguerreotypist and his disappointments in plans for a …

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

The Past is Present: A Reflection on Civil War Veterans

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Naomi Subotnick, Liljenquist Fellow, Prints and Photographs Division, Summer 2017. This past summer, I worked as a Liljenquist Fellow in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, where I helped to digitize, catalog, and house recently acquired Civil War-era photographs. Working with the Liljenquist Family …