The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints and Photographs Division.
What do the Golden Triangle, horse-drawn buggies, Oil City, and the Mummers’ Parade have in common? They can all be seen in a new set of photographs of The Keystone State–Pennsylvania. We are grateful for the generous grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, which made it possible for photographer Carol M. Highsmith to document historic sites as well as contemporary scenes in Pennsylvania during 2019. The emphasis on images of Philadelphia speaks to the upcoming 75th anniversary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, which is based in “Philly.”
This image sampler introduces you to the range of images now online. You can enjoy a front row seat on a lively civic celebration and also soar high above Pittsburgh in aerial views. On the ground again, you can venture down small town main streets, visit the ruins of Concrete City, stop at a round barn, and much more.

Inaugurated in 1901 and held each New Year’s Day, this is the 2019 Mummers parade on Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019.
//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.56030

Aerial view of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a focus on The Point, the place where the Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River come together to form the Ohio River… Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019. //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.58500

My Girls Deli (delicatessen) occupies an old, colorfully painted stone building in downtown Somerset, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019. //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.58286

A graffiti-covered, abandoned building in Concrete City, near Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, an early example of International Style architecture built as company housing in 1911 for select employees of the Delaware, Lackawana and Western Railroad’s coal division in Nanticoke… Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019. //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.57480

The 1914 Round Barn & Farm Market, a family-owned and operated farmers’ market in Biglerville, Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019. //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.58874
Learn More:
- Explore all the states featured so far in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive using the browse by places list or just search in the archive for your state!
- View the newly added photos from Pennsylvania now available online in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
- Read a previous Picture This post all about newly added photos of Wyoming: Wide Open Spaces of Wyoming: Newly Added Photos from Carol M. Highsmith.
July 17, 2020 at 4:17 pm
Love her!
July 17, 2020 at 7:47 pm
These photos are wonderful! The Library of Congress, and the American people, are so lucky to have such a talented, generous woman as Carol M. Highsmith spend years of her life visually documenting the United States and donating her voluminous work to the Library for the benefit of future generations. God bless her.
July 20, 2020 at 6:57 am
nice article
July 20, 2020 at 10:37 am
Nice selections showing off Carol’s great eye.