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Archive: 2019 (52 Posts)

New LibGuide – Postcards: Greetings from the Prints & Photographs Division

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. Summer vacation is often associated with postcards as we share our journeys and memories with friends and family via snail mail. However, postcards get their moment in the sun all year long here in the Prints & Photographs Division. This …

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

A Look at Graduation Time

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Every year, June brings change for thousands of students across the United States as they mark the end of a chapter in their educational life and, possibly, the start of a new one. The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include a number of high school and college graduation photographs. Some aspects of these images seem …

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

Donuts in the American Visual Landscape

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include a fair number of donut-related images that collectively demonstrate the sugary treat’s long-standing presence in American culture. These rich indulgences can be seen in such varied areas of American life as roadside architecture, military history, and even public affairs. A search of the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog …

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

Summer Search: A Plum Assignment

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

A few years ago, I tried out a summer “looking” challenge in an attempt to parallel the clever ideas my local public library uses to encourage summer book club participants to pick out volumes they might not have otherwise sampled (“Summer Looking Challenge–Touring the Collections with Azure Allure“). It’s getting to be that time of …

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

Art in Action: A Further Look at Socially-Engaged Contemporary Artist Prints

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by exhibition co-curator Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division. Writer James Baldwin observed that “An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian.” The Library of Congress exhibition Art in Action: Herblock and Fellow Artists Respond to Their Times explores the role of artists …

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

Profiling Portraits: Dodging the Camera

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

In this newest installment in the occasional series, Profiling Portraits, we take a look at the type of portraits taken when the subject wishes to avoid the camera! Few smiles appear, mostly scowls or attempts to hide. Just like in modern times, news photographers decades ago sought their subjects with dogged determination. The photos of …

Helen L. Gilson, Civil War nurse and head of the Colored Hospital Service. Photo by J.C. Moulton, between 1861 and 1865.

A Visual Salute to Nurses

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Karen Chittenden, Cataloging Specialist in the Prints & Photographs Division. National Nurses Week recognizes the contributions of professional nurses, and this year we’d like to do the same by highlighting recently acquired photographs of wartime nurses who marshaled resources, medical skill, and courage to offer help in dire …

Frances Benjamin Johnston Puts Her Stamp on Documenting Work at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Finding written documentation to provide context for images in the collections is not something we can always bank on, but when that information does exist it can be a real luxury. Happily, soon after Frances Benjamin Johnston took photographs of work in the Stamp Division at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, she wrote “Uncle …

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

Documenting our American Places

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

In his November 1933 proposal to create the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)  in partnership with the Library of Congress and the American Institute of Architects, the National Park Service’s Charles E. Peterson sounded this call to action: “Our architectural heritage of buildings from the last four centuries diminishes daily at an alarming rate. The …