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Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Imagine an expanse of hilly countryside. Fill it with with hundreds, perhaps thousands of men, battling to the death. Now put yourself into that scene. Listen to the clash of metal as swords and bayonets meet, the boom of cannons firing, the voices yelling. You’re in danger: there are bullets whizzing by and men dying around …
Posted in: Drawings
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
When I came across the photograph at right in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, it did not stand out. It is a circa 1858 view of a Philadelphia mental hospital, and while the age is notable, that would not necessarily be enough to arrest my attention. So, why did this image catch my eye? …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Photographing the Golden Gate Bridge is a challenge on many levels – quite literally! Nearly 9,000 feet in length, and rising almost 800 feet into the air, it doesn’t pose easily for the camera. I can only assume from looking at the images of the Golden Gate Bridge in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Nearly half a million people lived in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The majority of them were fast asleep when the world began to shake apart. At 5:12 a.m. the city was struck by a massive earthquake, one which modern science estimates at anywhere from 7.8 to 8.2 on the Richter scale. …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
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 …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
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”) When American illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green created a watercolor painting to accompany Henry Van Dyke’s “Inscriptions for a Friend’s House,” …
Posted in: Drawings
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One hundred years ago, the city of Tokyo sent Washington, D.C. a gift of friendship that continues to bloom today. Quite literally, in fact! Three thousand flowering cherry trees arrived in D.C. in 1912, and started what has become an annual spring tradition for residents of the D.C. area and thousands of tourists: going to …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. “You know the generals. Now meet the young men who made them famous.” That’s how Tom Liljenquist describes the special collection of rare portrait photographs that he continues to build at the Library of Congress to commemorate the American Civil War. …
Posted in: Acquisitions, Photographs, Portraits
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
When James Maxwell Pringle departed for Russia in November 1917, his intent was to visit the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) branch of his employer, National City Bank. His business trip turned into an unexpected window on the Bolshevik Revolution. Arriving in Petrograd in the days just after the October Revolution, when Bolshevik forces overthrew the Russian …
Posted in: Acquisitions, Photographs