Okay. I admit it. I put my children to work this summer. Recently, when doldrums threatened, I asked them to take a look at the Library’s National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) photographs online, choose some they found of interest, and tell me why. Working as an “investigative photographer” for the NCLC between 1908 and 1924, …
What summer event filled with spectacle and circumstance, speeches and ovations, and capped by a balloon drop happens every four years? No, it’s not the Olympic Games; it’s political party convention time! These quadrennial events are the formal nominating process for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. In addition to the serious work of nailing down …
Here’s a job that’s not for the acrophobic — painting the outside of the Capitol dome! In fact, this 1922 photograph from our National Photo Company Collection may bring on a bit of vertigo in our heights-sensitive readers when they realize how high up in the air this painter is suspended. If this thought hasn’t …
Even those of you who don’t feel as strongly about your morning cup of joe as I do can understand why this photograph would catch my eye! Just imagine the thousands of cups of coffee it could hold! The Bedford Coffee Pot no longer dishes out coffee along the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, but it …
On Saturday July 28, the Library hosted its first Photography Meetup in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building. We invited photography enthusiasts to come and take part in a scavenger hunt guided by a selection of photographs Carol M. Highsmith made for the Library of Congress. The Meetup was a real success, and …
I love the Olympics. I love the competition, the ceremonies, the sportsmanship. My earliest personal experience with a festival of games was on a pretty small scale: the annual Field Day in grade school. My favorite event wasn’t the water balloon toss or the three-legged race. It was the ultimate battle between classes, Tug of …
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 …
The following is a guest post by Bronwen Colquhoun, Kluge Fellow. I’ve been invited to blog about an exciting event that we are organizing here at the Library on Saturday July 28, 2012. You are invited to a Photography Meetup in the Thomas Jefferson Building to capture some of the elaborate architecture and artwork rooted …
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. Drum roll please! Fireworks, too! Please join us in celebrating not only the Fourth of July, but the arrival of new scans that showcase close to 45,000 of the beloved Great Depression era photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection (FSA). …