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Archive: 2021 (24 Posts)

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

Exploring Black-Owned Businesses from the Turn of the 20th Century

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

August was designated as National Black Business Month in 2004. Just about a century earlier, visitors to the Paris Exposition of 1900 also had an opportunity to appreciate the entrepreneurial endeavors of African Americans. The Exposition included a display devoted to the history and “present conditions” of African Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois and special agent …

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

“A step out of and beyond nature”: Picturing the Moon

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division. This week’s anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing provides a perfect opportunity to explore our holdings of lunar photography in the Prints & Photographs Division. From the medium’s beginnings, the moon fascinated photographers as both a subject of …

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

Ready for Research: Newsmaker Photos by Bernard Gotfryd

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Anne Mitchell, Senior Cataloging Specialist, Prints and Photographs Division. Interested in news-worthy people and events from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s? Get ready to explore the work of photographer Bernard Gotfryd, who donated his work to the Library of Congress. Copyright restrictions ended in 2016. Now available online …

Interior showing windows with large shutters.

Exploring Buildings by Louis I. Kahn in the Historic American Buildings Survey

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Ryan Brubacher, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. One of my most favorite rabbit holes to find myself in as a librarian is the deep and wonderful collection of the combined Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), collectively …

Print shows five witches flying on a single broom over a rural landscape.

An Acquisition Adventure: “Loco Foco Witches Laying a Spell Over the Country”

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. “Exceptionally rare and believed to be previously unknown,” in the seller’s letter intrigued me. On offer, an 1836 anti-Martin Van Buren woodcut print, depicting Van Buren as a witch and riding the coattails of …

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

Landscape Photographs: Shaping Our Impressions of the Earth

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division (and a photographer himself). In honor of Earth Day, we wanted to take a deeper look at some of the Library’s historic collections of landscape photographs. When many people think of landscape photographs they think of wide-open spaces, empty …