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Archive: 2022 (52 Posts)

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

From Apples to Autumn Leaves

Posted by: Jan Grenci

When searching in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), one fascinating image can often lead to another. That is what happened when I was looking for apple images for the latest Flickr album How Do You Like These Apples? I included this Currier & Ives lithograph from the Popular Graphic Arts Collection in the …

Soldiers with cannon on small railroad car.

Revisiting Rights-Free: U.S. Civil War Images

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The Prints & Photographs Division’s U.S. Civil War collections are impressive, spanning a number of collections. Our core bodies of material related to the Civil War are conveniently featured in one place in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Probably the best known collection of Civil War material in the division consists of original glass …

Caught Our Eyes: En garde!

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

One of the things I do as a reference librarian of visual materials is keep a folder full of interesting images I come across in my work. Our collections are full of opportunities for serendipitous discovery, and I keep my eyes open for compelling images like this 1923 photo from the National Photo Company Collection. …

Send In the (Baseball) Clowns

Posted by: Jan Grenci

My latest Flickr album, focusing on images of brass instruments, includes a photograph of Nick Altrock and Al Schacht playing sousaphones: This photo and others in this blog post were taken when both men were a part of the Washington Senators organization. Both men had professional baseball careers, and were coaches when most of these …

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

Mapping Anthony Angel’s Photographs of Manhattan

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Photographer Angelo Antonio Rizzuto – or Anthony Angel, as he called himself –  captured a variety of people, structures, and places in Manhattan over the eighteen-year period from 1949 through 1967. Collectively, the thousands of images by Angel in the Prints & Photographs Division offer a window into life and the built environment in a …

Lend U.S. Your Eyes

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

“Will you supply eyes for the Navy?”  The arresting image of a blindfolded officer at sea, lost and confused, paired with that question, make this an effective poster – the image caught my attention and made me look and read further. This World War I poster is calling for help from the general population in …

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

The Art of the Book

Posted by: Kristi Finefield

Join curators Adam Silvia and Sara Duke as they highlight photographically illustrated books as well as graphic illustrations for books in the Prints & Photographs Division collections in two upcoming virtual presentations. Read on for a preview of some of the images and volumes they will share. Photographically illustrated books, some dating all the way …

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Posted by: Jan Grenci

My latest Flickr album features photographs of signs from across the United States taken by Carol M. Highsmith from the late 20th century to the present day. In this blog post I’d like to focus on some older photos of signs taken for the Farm Security Administration in the late 1930s and early 1940s by …

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

Unlocking the Color: Photographs by Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii, 1909 to 1915

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following interview with photographer Walt Frankhauser is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief of the Prints & Photographs Division. Back in 1948, the Library of Congress acquired close to 2,000 rare glass-plate negatives created by the Russian photographer Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). We knew that what appeared to be black-and-white images could be …