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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
As I was trolling through Bain News Service photographs from 100 years ago, I couldn’t help but reflect on how hindsight shapes our view of pictures and their meaning. I stopped in my tracks at this photo from July 27, 1914, with its evocative depiction of cooling recreation on a warm day. Despite the somewhat …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Woody Woodis, Cataloger, Prints and Photographs Division Today, in honor of Bastille Day, or La Fête Nationale, marking the beginning of the French Revolution, we feature highlights from the French Political Cartoon Collection. This small but exemplary collection of 365 prints spans almost two centuries and touches on …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
School may be out for the summer, but around the Library of Congress there’s always something new to learn. This week I joined teachers attending one of the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute sessions to display examples of primary sources that might be suited to classroom exercises. It set me to reflecting on examples …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
When I ran across this image recently, it struck me just how much parades and flags go together and, furthermore, how much people have experimented with displaying enormous flags. In this case, the flag was probably better seen from the photographer’s vantage point than by spectators on the ground. As is so often the case, …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Update in 2024: A new Richard Morris Hunt Research Guide is available. While reading Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City about events in 1890s Chicago during the World’s Columbian Exposition, I became intrigued by the glimpses Larson provided of architect Richard Morris Hunt, one of the contributors to the exposition’s monumental design. Richard …
Posted in: Architecture
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Gay Colyer, Digital Library Specialist, Prints & Photographs Division. We need your help to identify 68 photos of historic structures. They’re posted in a Flickr album called “Mystery Houses,” so that it’s easy to add your notes.* The photographer, Frances Benjamin Johnston, did leave a basic clue for …
Posted in: Architecture, Flickr, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
George Washington delivered the country’s first inaugural address 225 years ago on April 30th, 1789. Just as the legends pertaining to Washington have grown and persisted since his lifetime, so has the iconography. Throughout the years, artists have provided their own conceptions of the first presidential inauguration, as in this print published in 1849, which …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Pictures relating to food and drink often place the fare alluringly front and center, drawing the eyes in an attempt to spur thoughts of pleasurable tastes and smells. But what about pictures that attempt to communicate about the absence or deliberate avoidance of food or drink? How do they get across their message? Pictures about …
Posted in: Cartoons, Photographs, Posters, Series: Feast Your Eyes
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
I admire this photograph of Althea Gibson—and the notable woman it depicts–for several reasons. A news photo from our New York World-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, it shows Gibson at a tennis clinic reportedly attended by 500 students at Midwood High School. Tennis racket in hand, index finger extended, Gibson is literally giving pointers to …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs