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Posted by: Kristi Finefield
A log cabin, a city row house, and a Baptist church. As a list of buildings, it is unremarkable. When I describe these three structures with a focus on their places in history, the list gets much more interesting. They are also: the slave quarters on the Tennessee plantation owned by Pres. Andrew Jackson, the …
Posted in: African American History, HABS/HAER/HALS, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
On Veterans Day, Americans recognize and thank those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Initially known as Armistice Day and marking the cessation of major hostilities in World War I, the holiday grew to include all veterans, and was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. Crowds turn out in droves to watch parades of …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, who co-curated the exhibition with Sara Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts: When exhorted by Charles Dana Gibson to “draw ‘til it hurts!” hundreds of his fellow artists contributed over 1,400 designs, including some 700 posters, to promote the country’s …
Posted in: Cartoons, Drawings, News & Events, Photographs, Posters
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
“Look! Look!! Look!!! Tintypes. Cheap. Beautiful. Lasting.” The sign posted by the entrance to an elaborate temporary booth at a 1903 county fair sums up in a handful of words much of the appeal of the simple tintype portrait photograph. From the latter half of the 19th century until nearly the middle of the 20th, …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Anything to Get the Shot
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers. –Birmingham, Alabama, 1930. “Jim Crow” laws systematically codified separation by race in the American South. Although it had begun some years before and persisted for some …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
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 …
Posted in: Photographs