School Integration, Barnard School, Washington, D.C. Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran, May 27, 1955. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.03119

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This decision was pivotal to the struggle for racial desegregation in the United States.

A year later, in May 1955, Thomas O’Halloran, on assignment for U.S. News & World Report, visited several integrated schools in Washington, D.C. to capture some images of African American and white students learning together. I feature an image he shot that shows a line of African American and white school girls standing in a classroom while boys sit behind them.

Some of O’Halloran’s images ran in U.S. News & World Report in a June 10, 1955 article titled “Do Mixed Schools Really Work?: After One Year–Answers as Found in Washington, D.C.” The text of the article offered impressions on the success of the integration effort, but so did the pictures. What might viewers conclude from this one?

Learn More:

• Visit a 2004 exhibition “With an Even Hand”: Brown v. Board at Fifty which has an online version still available. The exhibition examines precedent-setting court cases that laid the ground work for the Brown v. Board decision, explores the Supreme Court argument and the public’s response to it, and closes with an overview of this profound decision’s aftermath.
• See more moments in civil rights history as captured by the photographers of U.S. News & World Report. The Civil Rights Era in the U.S. News & World Report Photographs Collection: Selected Images from the Collections of the Library of Congress were selected from the U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection to meet requests regularly received by the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
• Learn more about the U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection in a collection overview of this resource of almost 1.2 million original 35mm and 2 1/4 inch (primarily black & white) negatives.
• A recent book published by the Library of Congress and Abrams Books, Miles to Go for Freedom: Segregation and Civil Rights in the Jim Crow Era, tells the story of African-American young people and their families who lived through the “Jim Crow” years, when “separate but equal” laws supported discrimination against African Americans.

Tower bridges, Fort Point Channel, Boston, Mass. Photo by Detroit Publishing Company, copyrighted 1904. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/det.4a11410

We were struck by the clarity and beautiful geometry of the image, one of the recently rescanned glass negatives from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection.  We also wondered: What’s happening here? How did the bridges work?

Yes, we’re in a library—we could look it up.  But do any of you bridge specialists out there want to shed some light?

Learn more:

• Read about the Detroit Publishing Company Collection and sample more images: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/det/ and navigation links at the left.
• View a similar image published in One Hundred and Fifty Glimpses of Boston, Cambridge, Lexington, Concord by John Francis Murphy (Boston: J.F. Murphy, 1904), available through the Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• View a sampling of pictures of bridges through the Prints &  Photographs Online Catalog.
• View comments on another evocative bridge picture we posted in our Flickr account—the next best thing to being there, with further illustration from those who were there!
• We were thinking about bridges this very date five years ago!  View a Webcast celebrating the publication of two books in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks in Architecture Design and Engineering series, including Bridges by Richard L. Cleary (New York: Norton, 2007).

At the May Day Pageant in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia. Photo by Jack Delano, May 1941. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a35631

In May 1941, Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographer Jack Delano captured the May Day Pageant in Siloam, a small town in Greene County, Georgia. Today, I feature two photographs of the day’s events. First, above, is a procession of girls dancing in fancy costumes, looking like a group of flitting butterflies. The second image, below, shows the back of a costumed girl watching a Maypole dance.

At the May Day Pageant in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia. Photo by Jack Delano, May 1941. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a35453

Learn More:

• View more than 40 images taken by FSA photographer Jack Delano at the 1941 May Day Pageant in Siloam, Georgia.
• Two years earlier, in May 1939, FSA photographer Marion Post Wolcott captured the May Day-Health Day celebration at Irwinville Farms, Georgia.
• May Day, May 1, is also International Workers’ Day, marked with parades, marches, and demonstrations in many countries. Search on May Day parade in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog to see some events associated with this aspect of May Day.

President Roosevelt and Major Pitcher before Liberty Cap at Yellowstone Park. Stereograph copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood, 1903. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s02130

The anniversary of Earth Day this past weekend (coupled with some gorgeous spring days!) has me thinking about being outdoors more. From there my mind jumps to ideal places to explore, bringing national parks to the surface in my daydreams. Finally, the thought of national parks reminds me that Prints & Photographs has been adding quite a lot of digital stereographs to the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog featuring outdoorsman Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, including his 1903 tour of the American West with stops in Yellowstone and Yosemite.

Today, I highlight one stereograph from each of these majestic places. First, there is President Roosevelt and Yellowstone Park Superintendent Major Pitcher on horseback stopping for a photograph in front of the Liberty Cap, an extinct geyser. Second, below, Roosevelt is described by Underwood & Underwood as partaking of his "choicest recreation – amid nature’s rugged grandeur on Glacier Point, Yosemite."

President Roosevelt on Glacier Point, Yosemite. Stereograph copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood, 1903. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s02031

Learn More:

• View some stereographs of Roosevelt’s trip to Yellowstone and his visit to California, including stops to see giant sequoias.
• If seeing these images only whets your appetite for more of President Theodore Roosevelt, there are over 500 stereographs featuring this turn-of-the-twentieth-century president. Of course, you need not be limited to just stereographs as there are more than 1400 images associated with the robust Mr. Roosevelt in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.

For the next four days, San Francisco burned. With little water available, the fire department resorted to dynamiting buildings in an attempt to slow the fires. By the time the last fires burnt out on Saturday, April 21, this was San Francisco:

Ruins of San Francisco after earthquake and fire, April 18 - 21, 1906. Photo by Lester C. Guernsey, 1906. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.05595

The devastation was overwhelming:

• Over 28,000 buildings were burned, and over 500 city blocks destroyed
• An estimated 3,000 people lost their lives
• More than 200,000 people were left homeless

However, the city flag of San Francisco featured a phoenix rising from the ashes for good reason.  In the fifty years since becoming a part of America, the city had burned several times, and been shaken by many earthquakes, large and small.  And each time, the city rebuilt.  The earthquake and fires of 1906 left a far larger task behind, with widespread destruction on a scale the people of San Francisco had never seen before.

And yet, they did rebuild, and they rebuilt quickly.

In a show of resilience and civic pride, the city not only rebuilt itself, it invited the world to visit as the host of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. In fact, rubble from the 1906 earthquake was used to create the land needed for the site of the exposition’s impressive structures.  On the ashes of the past, the city rose again.

Witness San Francisco’s growth and transformation from 1851 to 1922 through the slideshow below. (Click anywhere on the images to begin.)

Learn More:

San Francisco, April 18, 1906. Photo by Arnold Genthe, 1906. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/agc.7a55059

• View the aerial photographs taken by George Lawrence using a captive airship shortly after the earthquake.
• Explore photographs of the fires and the damage, as well as glimpses into life for the people of San Francisco in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
• See images related to the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
• Watch films of San Francisco before and after the earthquake and fire from the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound Division.

Sources & Bibliography:

Burkhart, David. Earthquake Days: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake & Fire in 3-D. San Bruno, CA: Faultline Books, 2005.

Harris, David, Eric Sandweiss, and Eadweard Muybridge. Eadweard Muybridge and the Photographic Panorama of San Francisco, 1850-1880. Montréal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1993.

Saul, Eric, and Don DeNevi. The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, 1906. Millbrae, Calif: Celestial Arts, 1981.

Winchester, Simon. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Who are the two little French boys that were dropped, almost naked, from the deck of the sinking Titanic into the arms of survivors in a lifeboat?  From which place in France did they come and to which place in the new world were they bound? There is not one iota of information to be had as to the identity of the waifs of the deep – the orphans of the Titanic.

(The Evening World, April 20, 1912, p. 4)

Louis & Lola ?-- TITANIC survivors. Photo by Bain News Service, April 1912. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.11222

The little boys in the photograph hardly look like shipwreck survivors in their clean playclothes, one holding a stuffed cat, the other a ball. The caption above their heads hints at the rest of the story: Louis and Lola ?  – Titanic survivors.

The names were a guess, given by very young children who spoke only French.  It soon became clear the man who had handed them into the last lifeboat was their father, and that he was one of over 1,500 victims as the Titanic sank into the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. Newspapers picked up the story of the apparent orphans, with numerous articles looking for answers and hopefully, family.

At the same time, in Nice, France, a woman was searching for her two sons, spirited away by her estranged husband weeks before. When news accounts reached her about the ‘Titanic orphans,‘ she thought they might be her boys, an ocean away. She described them in detail, sent questions only they could answer, and it was confirmed. These were her sons, Michel, 4 and Edmond, 2.

Mme. Navratil & sons. (Cropped.) Photo by Bain News Service, May 16, 1912. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.12109

Their father had traveled under an assumed name with the boys, fatefully choosing the Titanic as their getaway ship. Soon, Mme. Marcelle Navratil steamed across the Atlantic to America to find her sons, and by May 1912, they were reunited. For a sad time in the world, it was that rarest of things: a happy ending.

In a modern-day echo, this photo and two others with the same minimal captions were posted a few years ago to the Library of Congress Flickr photostream from our Bain News Service Collection. With the benefit of modern technology, it took mere hours for commenters to reunite the boys with their names and tale of survival, providing yet another happy ending, almost one hundred years later.

Learn More:

• See how quickly the information flowed for ‘Louis & Lola’ in Flickr, and view the other photos of the unidentified boys in the Bain News Service Collection.
• Explore other images related to the Titanic in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
• Read different stories of the Titanic as told by other blogs at the Library of Congress on this centennial of the tragic sinking.

Cover Image: Gardens for a Beautiful America: 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston

When house and garden historian Sam Watters first learned about Frances B. Johnston’s color garden photos from the early 1900s, he e-mailed us right away. An appointment was soon arranged to show him these fascinating but uncataloged “magic lantern slides.” We all felt like we were walking into a large gold mine without a map.

Johnston, a talented photographer and an advocate for beautifying America, had selected 1,100 of her landscape photographs for reproduction as hand-colored lantern slides (small glass transparencies, typically 3.25 x 4 inches). Projecting these remarkable images while she spoke extemporaneously made her lectures at garden clubs and other venues popular from 1915 on.

North Terrace Fountain in "Jones Wood" Townhouse Commons, New York, N.Y. Lantern slide by Frances B. Johnston, 1921. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.16195

The result? A “sumptuous and scholarly” new book provides an invaluable guide to the collection. Gardens for a Beautiful America: 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston, published by Acanthus Press in collaboration with the Library of Congress, features 250 full color images. In-depth essays describe the importance of Johnston’s work with gardens and also explain the techniques she used to compose lantern slides that resemble miniature paintings. The detailed source notes about individual gardens and explanatory footnotes can help anyone pursue similar research with other collections.

Watters will discuss and sign his book for a Books & Beyond event on Friday, April 13, at noon, in the Library’s West Dining Room. The program is free and open to the public.

Thank you, Sam, for breathing life back into these rare garden images. Your expert knowledge and dedication have ensured open public access for this gardening gold mine!

Update:

The whole collection is now available online, too, for everyone to enjoy through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Watters not only wrote a book, he provided detailed captions for all the original images, giving them a garden name, location, date, and site history.

Learn More:

Photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston with Her View Camera at the Biltmore Estate, 1938. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.31666

• Gardens for a Beautiful America by Sam Watters, with preface by C. Ford Peatross (New York: Acanthus Press, published in collaboration with the Library of Congress, 2012)
• Acquaint yourself with Frances Benjamin Johnston’s amazing life in the Biographical Overview and Chronology
• Explore the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South collection–the source for most images in the lantern slide lecture Johnston called “Tales Old Houses Tell”
• Get a sense of the varied scope of the Johnston Collection–with more than 2,500 photos digitized from throughout her career
• Discover the technology behind Lantern Slides in an illustrated booklet on how to make them, written by John Tennant in 1899 for The Photo-miniature: A Monthly Magazine of Photographic Information. Vol. 1, no. 9, December 1899. (Call number: TR505 .L357 1899 P&P Case X)

When each heart gives out its best,
Then the talk is full of zest:
Light your fire and never fear,
Life was made for love and cheer.

(Henry Van Dyke, “Inscriptions for a Friend’s House”)

Life was Made for Love and Cheer. Watercolor by Elizabeth Shippen Green, 1904. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.04735

When American illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green created a watercolor painting to accompany Henry Van Dyke’s “Inscriptions for a Friend’s House,” she had the perfect subject matter: her own life. Green and her two close friends and fellow artists, Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet Oakley are featured, surrounded by friends and family on the grounds of the Red Rose Inn. The trio of artists lived and worked together there for a time, and were known as “The Red Rose Girls.” Their talent and success as artists during America’s golden age of illustration from 1880 to 1920 set these women apart in a male-dominated field.

As April begins, and we welcome both spring and National Poetry Month, it seems only fitting to share the vibrant and colorful work created by Green and her contemporaries, often used to accompany poems and stories published in books and illustrated magazines.

More than four thousand pieces of original illustration art by over two hundred artists, including examples by all of the Red Rose Girls, make up the Cabinet of American Illustration. The collection was established in the 1930s for the Library of Congress by William Patten, art editor of Harper’s Monthly during the 1880s and 1890s, to capture this important era in American art.

Green herself donated over one hundred of her illustrations to the Cabinet at Patten’s request, and so I will leave you with one more. Green captured the world as seen through the eyes of a child, as she illustrated Josephine Preston Peabody’s  “The Journey”:

The Journey. Oil painting by Elizabeth Shippen Green, 1903. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.04728

I never saw the hills so far
And blue, the way the pictures are;

And flowers, flowers growing thick,
But not a one for me to pick!

The land was running from the train,
All blurry through the window-pane.

(Josephine Preston Peabody, “The Journey”)

Learn More:

• View the illustrations in the Cabinet of American Illustration in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, including those by Elizabeth Shippen Green.
• Explore the online exhibit A Petal from the Rose: Illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green and The Water-Babies: Illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith.
• Visit the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center for news and resources related to poetry.

Jim Thorpe, New York NL, at Spring Training in Marlin Springs, Texas (Baseball). Photo published by Bain News Service, 1918. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.50300

As I write this post on March 29th, Washington’s cherry trees have already bloomed . . . and gone . . . and another rite of spring has passed as well: baseball’s spring training! The 2012 Major League Baseball season commenced yesterday in Tokyo as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics (who got their revenge by beating the Mariners today).

For a number of weeks, teams have been getting back in shape and re-sharpening their hitting, pitching, fielding, and base-running skills in warm-weather climes such as Florida and Arizona. Most of us, alas, didn’t have the opportunity to travel to witness this annual occurrence, but will have to judge our team’s prospects by what we read in the sports pages or witness at the ball park or on television.

Here’s hoping that this spring finds you renewed and ready and getting in touch with your innermost Jim Thorpe or Babe Ruth!

Learn More:

• See some of the titans of yesteryear in the Library of Congress collection of early Baseball Cards dating from 1887 to 1914. The cards show such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base for Detroit, Tris Speaker batting for Boston, and pitcher Cy Young posing formally in his Cleveland uniform. Other notable players include Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, King Kelly, and Christy Mathewson.
• Drawn from the world’s largest baseball collection, the 2009 book Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress features more than 350 illustrations including vintage baseball cards, photos of famous players and ballparks, newspaper clippings, cartoons, and WPA baseball ads, in a history of baseball’s origins, rich heritage, and uniquely American character. You can view a sampling of the types of images featured in the book in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.

Babe Ruth, King of Swat, at St. Petersburg, Florida. Stereograph copyrighted by Keystone View Co., 1930. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.18798

The commenter recognized the well-known subject of the photograph, educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune served as director of the Office of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration, where she helped coordinate projects to extend employment opportunities to African Americans.

"Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, founder and former president and director of the NYA (National Youth Administration) Negro Relations, Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona Beach, Florida." Photo by Gordon Parks, 1943 January. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8d12510

The details mentioned by this visitor and others who viewed the photograph  suggest that both Bethune, in the arrangement of her office, and Gordon Parks, in working with her to make this portrait, realized the power of pictures.

What do you see in the picture? Are there any details people might miss at first glance?

“In the photograph, you have a distinguished American, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.  This is taken at Bethune-Cookman College by Gordon Parks.  I am noticing the various photos on the wall (Madam C. J. Walker, Langston Hughes, Franklin Roosevelt).”

What do you think that the photographer was trying to show?

“Mr. Parks in his photograph shows the dignity of his subject, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.”

Learn more:

• View other photographs Gordon Parks took at Bethune-Cookman College (now Bethune-Cookman University).
• View information about Mary McLeod Bethune and resources for researching her in the Civil Rights History Project oral history materials.
• View a select list of images of 20th Century African American Activists.
• View a set of photographs we have shared through the Library of Congress Flickr account: “Women Striving Forward, 1910s-1940s.”
• View previous  “Words about Pictures” posts.