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Category: Photos

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Harriet Tubman: Teaming Up to Acquire a Rare Photograph

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

This post draws on the article “Pulling Together for Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. Newly discovered portraits of long-famous Americans rarely surface—especially 150 years after they were made. Last spring, however, a U.S. auction house put up for bid …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

New Online: Rare Photo of Harriet Tubman Preserved for Future Generations

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

This post draws on the article “Building Black History: A New View of Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. A remarkable photo album brought two major institutions together to restore and preserve an important piece of American history. Today, the …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

New Acquisition: Leo Matiz, History and Fiction through Photography

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The following is a guest post by Catalina Gomez, a reference librarian in the Hispanic Division, and Adam Silvia, an assistant curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division. This past year, photography enthusiasts celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Leo Matiz (1917–98), one of the best photographers in Latin America in …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inquiring Minds: Digital Artist Gives New Life to Historical Scenes and People

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Marina Amaral was studying international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, when she first tried her hand at digitally colorizing a historical photograph. She had no formal background in art or photography, but since childhood she had enjoyed working with Photoshop in her free time. One day, while not feeling terribly …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inquiring Minds: Director Casts Girls as “Newsies,” Citing Library’s Historical Photos

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Benny Seda-Galarza, a public affairs specialist in the Communications Office, is co-author of this post. For two long weeks in summer 1899, readers of the New York World and the New York Journal had to do without their daily papers. The reason: thousands of ragtag child newspaper sellers went on strike against the two largest …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Calling All Photo Fans and History Detectives: Flickr Commons, 10th Anniversary

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, chief of the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. It was first published on “Picture This,” the division’s blog. It’s a remarkable achievement for any social media program to still be going strong after 10 years. But the most important part of the Flickr Commons is the …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

This Day in History: Celebrating Dizzy Gillespie Through Photographs and More

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

“Be-bop is a way of phrasing and accenting. The accent is on the up beat. Instead of OO-bah, it’s oo-BAH. Different chords, too. And lots of flatted 5ths and 9ths. There’s lots more to it. But just now I can’t think of what.” —Dizzy Gillespie, Sept. 10, 1947, Down Beat Dizzy Gillespie—trumpeter, composer, bandleader—made an …