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Archive: March 2016 (5 Posts)

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

A Wide-Ranging View of West Virginia

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

More than 1,000 color photographs of wild, wonderful West Virginia recently joined the ever-growing Carol M. Highsmith Archive in the Prints and Photographs Division. Taken in 2015, these photos are part of Highsmith’s multi-year plan to photograph every state in the U.S., with the Library of Congress as the home for this modern survey of …

P.M. Gen. New with girls basketball team of Dept. Photo by National Photo Co., March 1, 1926.

Women Hoopsters

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

The following is a guest post by Julie Stoner, Reference Technician in the Prints & Photographs Division. I like most sports; I’m just not very good at playing any of them. And as a much better spectator than participant, I always look forward to “March Madness,” a whirlwind month of basketball tournaments held by the …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Photographers and the Cherry Blossoms of D.C.

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

In about a week, residents and visitors in Washington, D.C., will witness the peak bloom of the cherry blossom trees given to the nation by Japan over 100 years ago. This annual profusion of pink and white blossoms on the trees encircling the Tidal Basin draws thousands of people. Many stroll along the water to …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Signs of Their Times: Signs of the Hereafter

Posted by: Jeff Bridgers

Two previous posts in this series have focused on billboards promoting the “American Way” and signs enforcing racial segregation. Having been raised in the Deep South, I was accustomed to seeing religious signs during travels by car or pickup truck. Some signs bore succinct messages while others were far more word-filled, requiring a pullover to …

Claire Rochester. Photo by Bain News Service, 1916 April. http://hdl.loc.gov

Pictures to Go: Women and Automobiles

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

How have women and automobiles been depicted together? The image I conjured in my mind’s eye involved attractive women draped across a car in a purely decorative fashion–something like the image below, where the finer features of the bathing beauties are more on view than the Columbia Six Sport they are presumably helping to advertise. …