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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Researchers come to their topics in many ways. Some set out to test a theory, to revise the assertions of others, or to explore people, places, events or issues from new angles. For others, topics surface from the primary sources themselves. One of my favorite stories in this regard is historian David McCullough’s account of …
Posted in: News & Events
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: Jeff Bridgers
For Leap Day 2012, Prints & Photographs proudly presents an 1896 circus poster for Adam Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Enormous Shows Combined which promotes the Leap Year Ladies of Laughter. As “the only clown women who wear the comic crown,” these alliterative ladies are said to have a comedic touch as “variable as the shade …
Posted in: Posters
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
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
In honor of Valentine’s Day, here is a vintage 1883 advertisement for Prang’s Valentine Cards which shows a woman holding a group of tethered cherubs, who float like a bunch of balloons above her head. The advertisement also shows that the sale of Valentine’s greetings has been of commercial importance for well over a century. …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
“Meet an American soldier of production. … His uniform is a pair of overalls and a welder’s mask. Not reveille, but a battered alarm clock awakens him six days a week at 6 a.m. There are no service stripes on those welder’s sleeves he wears but his part in the winning of this war is …
Posted in: Photographs, Posters
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
On February 1, 1960, four young men sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ordered coffee and doughnuts. More than fifty years later, this may not seem like a daring act, but it was. First the waitress and then the store manager explained that the lunch counter was reserved for …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!” (Robert Burns, Address To A Haggis) I hope you’ve already begun preparing your Burns Supper, because today is Robert Burns Day, and it takes several hours to make a proper haggis! If the prospect of dinner cooked in a sheep’s stomach does not appeal, …
Posted in: News & Events, Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Brett Carnell, Acting Head, Technical Services Section, Prints & Photographs Division. Here’s wishing you a happy Chinese New Year. We usher in the Year of the Dragon with a photo from 100 years ago showing two men toasting the new year in New York’s Chinatown. Running for fifteen …
Posted in: Photographs